Apparently a UIColor is not necessarily a single color, but can be a pattern as well. Confusingly, this is not supported in Interface Builder.
Instead you set the backgroundColor of the view (say, in -viewDidLoad) with the convenience method +colorWithPatternImage: and pass it a UI Image. For Instance:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage: [UIImage imageNamed:@"gingham.png"]];
}
Of course, don’t forget to add the image file to your application bundle.
There are also some built-in background pattern “colors”:
- groupTableViewBackgroundColor
- viewFlipsideBackgroundColor
Because the are used globally across all iPhone apps, you incur the double-edged sword of an OS update updating the look and feel of your application (giving it a fresh new look that may or may not work right).
For instance:
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor groupTableViewBackgroundColor];
}