Sometimes it is really necessary to have a transparent UIToolBar  within you iPhone app. Especially if you want to add a UIToolBar  to your UINavigationBar  you get some problems with overlaying backgrounds (UIBarStyleBlackOpaque  did not work for a toolbar on a black opaque navigation bar).

A quick and pragmatic solution is to subclass UIToolBar  and do some modifications. The following code is everything you need to get a really transparent tool bar:

@interface TransparentToolbar : UIToolbar
@end

@implementation TransparentToolbar

// Override draw rect to avoid
// background coloring
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    // do nothing in here
}

// Set properties to make background
// translucent.
- (void) applyTranslucentBackground
{
    self.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
    self.opaque = NO;
    self.translucent = YES;
}

// Override init.
- (id) init
{
    self = [super init];
    [self applyTranslucentBackground];
    return self;
}

// Override initWithFrame.
- (id) initWithFrame:(CGRect) frame
{
    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    [self applyTranslucentBackground];
    return self;
}

@end

To apply a color to the including UIBarButtonItems  you can set the bar style as usual.