How can I detect the touch event of an UIImageView?

I have placed an image (UIImageView) on the navigation bar. Now I want to detect the touch event and want to handle the event. How can I do that?

Solution 1:

In practical terms, don't do that.

Instead add a button with Custom style (no button graphics unless you specify images) over the UIImageView. Then attach whatever methods you want called to that.

You can use that technique for many cases where you really want some area of the screen to act as a button instead of messing with the Touch stuff.

Solution 2:

A UIImageView is derived from a UIView which is derived from UIResponder so it's ready to handle touch events. You'll want to provide the touchesBegan, touchesMoved, and touchesEnded methods and they'll get called if the user taps the image. If all you want is a tap event, it's easier to just use a custom button with the image set as the button image. But if you want finer-grain control over taps, moves, etc. this is the way to go.

You'll also want to look at a few more things:

• Override canBecomeFirstResponder and return YES to indicate that the view can become the focus of touch events (the default is NO).

• Set the userInteractionEnabled property to YES. The default for UIViews is YES, but for UIImageViews is NO so you have to explicitly turn it on.

• If you want to respond to multi-touch events (i.e. pinch, zoom, etc) you'll want to set multipleTouchEnabled to YES.

Solution 3:

To add a touch event to a UIImageView, use the following in your .m file:

UITapGestureRecognizer *newTap = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(myTapMethod)];

[myImageView setUserInteractionEnabled:YES];

[myImageView addGestureRecognizer:newTap];


-(void)myTapMethod{
    // Treat image tap
}

Solution 4:

You can also add a UIGestureRecognizer. It does not require you to add an additional element in your view hierarchy, but still provides you will all the nicely written code for handling touch events with a fairly simple interface:

    UISwipeGestureRecognizer *swipeRight = [[UISwipeGestureRecognizer alloc]
                                            initWithTarget:self action:@selector(handleSwipe:)];
    swipeRight.direction = UISwipeGestureRecognizerDirectionRight;
    [imgView_ addGestureRecognizer:swipeRight];        
    [swipeRight release];
    UISwipeGestureRecognizer *swipeLeft = [[UISwipeGestureRecognizer alloc]
                                            initWithTarget:self action:@selector(handleSwipe:)];
    swipeLeft.direction = UISwipeGestureRecognizerDirectionLeft;
    [imgView_ addGestureRecognizer:swipeLeft];
    [swipeLeft release];

Solution 5:

I've been on different threads on the past few hours trying to find a solution for my problem, to no avail. I see that many developers share this problem, and I think people here know about this. I have multiple images inside a UIScrollView, trying to get tap events on them.

I am not getting any events from an UIImangeView, but I do get an event from a similar UILable with very similar parameters I am setting to it. Under iOS 5.1.

I have already done the following:

1. set setUserInteractionEnabled to YES for both `UIImageView and parent view .
2. set setMultipleTouchEnabled to YES for UIImageView.
3. Tried subclassing UIImageView, didn't help any.

Attaching some code below, in this code I initialize both a UIImageView and UILabel, the label works fine in terms of firing events. I tried keeping out irrelevant code.

UIImageView *single_view = [[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(200, 200, 100, 100)];
single_view.image = img;
single_view.layer.zPosition = 4;

UITapGestureRecognizer *singleTap = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(singleTapGestureCaptured:)];
[single_view addGestureRecognizer:singleTap];
[single_view setMultipleTouchEnabled:YES];
[single_view setUserInteractionEnabled:YES];
[self.myScrollView addSubview:single_view];
self.myScrollView.userInteractionEnabled = YES;

UILabel *testLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 100)];
testLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
[self.myScrollView addSubview:testLabel];
[testLabel addGestureRecognizer:singleTap];
[testLabel setMultipleTouchEnabled:YES];
[testLabel setUserInteractionEnabled:YES];
testLabel.layer.zPosition = 4;

And the method which handles the event:

- (void)singleTapGestureCaptured:(UITapGestureRecognizer *)gesture
{
    UIView *tappedView = [gesture.view hitTest:[gesture locationInView:gesture.view] withEvent:nil];
    NSLog(@"Touch event on view: %@", [tappedView class]);
}

As said, the label tap is received.