Set the title of a UIButton with a single method invocation?

Question

I'd like to set the title of a UIButton via code. I find myself having to call -[UIButton setTitle:forState:] for UIControlStateNormal, UIControlStateHighlighted, UIControlStateDisabled, UIControlStateSelected. And that doesn't even take into account all of the combinations of these states together.

Needless to say, this is tiresome. Is there a single call I can make that will set one string as the title for all of the states? (Since, I assume that in 95% of the cases, that's the desired behavior?)

Answer 1

Yes, you certainly can. From the docs:

In general, if a property is not specified for a state, the default is to use the UIControlStateNormal value. If the value for UIControlStateNormal is not set, then the property defaults to a system value. Therefore, at a minimum, you should set the value for the normal state.

So just set the title for UIControlStateNormal and you're golden.

Answer 2

Like Mr./Ms. Frog says, setting the title for UIControlStateNormal will usually do the trick. The only exception is if titles are already set for other states. UIControlState is a mask, so you can cover your butt like so:

[button setTitle:@"Title" forState:UIControlStateNormal|UIControlStateHighlighted| UIControlStateDisabled|UIControlStateSelected]

If you're trying to be concise:

#define kAllControlStates (UIControlStateNormal|UIControlStateHighlighted| UIControlStateDisabled|UIControlStateSelected)
[button setTitle:@"Title" forState:kAllControlStates];

Or concise and opaque:

[button setTitle:@"Title" forState:0xffff];

Update: I should have tested this before answering. It turns out a mask like UIControlStateHighlighted|UIControlStateDisabled indicates the state when the control is both highlighted and disabled. I had incorrectly assumed that that mask indicates "highighted or disabled". To conclude, you're better off with Mr. Frog's answer.