How do I set UIButton background color forState: UIControlState.Highlighted in Swift

If anyone stops by, another way to go maybe more easily if it is something you need more than once... I wrote a short extension for UIButton, it works just fine:

for Swift 3

extension UIButton {
    func setBackgroundColor(color: UIColor, forState: UIControlState) {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSize(width: 1, height: 1))
        CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), color.CGColor)
        CGContextFillRect(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 1, height: 1))
        let colorImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

        self.setBackgroundImage(colorImage, forState: forState)
    }
}

for Swift 4

extension UIButton {
    func setBackgroundColor(color: UIColor, forState: UIControl.State) {
        self.clipsToBounds = true  // add this to maintain corner radius
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSize(width: 1, height: 1))
        if let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() {
            context.setFillColor(color.cgColor)
            context.fill(CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 1, height: 1))
            let colorImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
            UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
            self.setBackgroundImage(colorImage, for: forState)
        }
    }
}

You use it just like setBackgroundImage:

yourButton.setBackgroundColor(color: UIColor.white, forState: UIControl.State.highlighted)

Syntax changes to @winterized extension for Swift 3+ syntax

extension UIButton {
    func setBackgroundColor(color: UIColor, forState: UIControlState) {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSize(width: 1, height: 1))
        UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()!.setFillColor(color.cgColor)
        UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()!.fill(CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 1, height: 1))
        let colorImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        self.setBackgroundImage(colorImage, for: forState)
    }}

Below will be one way to go. Two IBActions. One to control background color when depressing a button, one on release.

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {


    @IBOutlet weak var button: UIButton!

    @IBAction func buttonClicked(sender: AnyObject) { //Touch Up Inside action
        button.backgroundColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    }

    @IBAction func buttonReleased(sender: AnyObject) { //Touch Down action
        button.backgroundColor = UIColor.blueColor()

    }

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

    }
}

When you look at the autocomplete options for your button after adding a period, you can set a background color, but not for specified state. You can only set background images. Now of course if you are married to doing it this way instead of using the method I show above, you could load an image of the desired color as the background image using the setbackgroundImageForState property.