iOS UIViewController Subclassing
Example
Subclassing UIControl gives us access to the following methods:
beginTrackingWithTouchis called when the finger first touches down within the control's bounds.continueTrackingWithTouchis called repeatedly as the finger slides across the control and even outside of the control's bounds.endTrackingWithTouchis called when the finger lifts off the screen.
MyCustomControl.swift
import UIKit
// These are out self-defined rules for how we will communicate with other classes
protocol ViewControllerCommunicationDelegate: class {
func myTrackingBegan()
func myTrackingContinuing(location: CGPoint)
func myTrackingEnded()
}
class MyCustomControl: UIControl {
// whichever class wants to be notified of the touch events must set the delegate to itself
weak var delegate: ViewControllerCommunicationDelegate?
override func beginTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch, withEvent event: UIEvent?) -> Bool {
// notify the delegate (i.e. the view controller)
delegate?.myTrackingBegan()
// returning true means that future events (like continueTrackingWithTouch and endTrackingWithTouch) will continue to be fired
return true
}
override func continueTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch, withEvent event: UIEvent?) -> Bool {
// get the touch location in our custom control's own coordinate system
let point = touch.locationInView(self)
// Update the delegate (i.e. the view controller) with the new coordinate point
delegate?.myTrackingContinuing(point)
// returning true means that future events will continue to be fired
return true
}
override func endTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch?, withEvent event: UIEvent?) {
// notify the delegate (i.e. the view controller)
delegate?.myTrackingEnded()
}
}
ViewController.swift
This is how the view controller is set up to be the delegate and respond to touch events from our custom control.
import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, ViewControllerCommunicationDelegate {
@IBOutlet weak var myCustomControl: MyCustomControl!
@IBOutlet weak var trackingBeganLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet weak var trackingEndedLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet weak var xLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet weak var yLabel: UILabel!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
myCustomControl.delegate = self
}
func myTrackingBegan() {
trackingBeganLabel.text = "Tracking began"
}
func myTrackingContinuing(location: CGPoint) {
xLabel.text = "x: \(location.x)"
yLabel.text = "y: \(location.y)"
}
func myTrackingEnded() {
trackingEndedLabel.text = "Tracking ended"
}
}
Notes
-
Alternate methods of achieving the same result without subclassing include adding a target or using a gesture recognizer.
-
It is not necessary to use a delegate with these methods if they are only being used within the custom control itself. We could have just added a
printstatement to show how the events are being called. In that case, the code would be simplified toimport UIKit class MyCustomControl: UIControl { override func beginTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch, withEvent event: UIEvent?) -> Bool { print("Began tracking") return true } override func continueTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch, withEvent event: UIEvent?) -> Bool { let point = touch.locationInView(self) print("x: \(point.x), y: \(point.y)") return true } override func endTrackingWithTouch(touch: UITouch?, withEvent event: UIEvent?) { print("Ended tracking") } }
