Handling Touch Event in UILabel and hooking it up to an IBAction

Question

Ok, so I have a UILabel created in interface builder that displays some some default text of "tap to begin".

When the user taps the UILabel I want it to trigger an IBAction method: -(IBAction)next; which updates the text on the label to say something new.
It would be really convenient if this allowed me to simply drag a connection from my method to my label and then select touch up inside, as with a button. but alas, no cigar.

so anyways, I guess my question is, am I going to have to subclass UILabel to get this to work? Or is there some way I can drag a button over the label, but make it 0% opaque. Or is there a simpler solution I'm missing?

Solution 1

Check it out:

UILabel *label = ...
label.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGesture =
      [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self 
                                              action:@selector(labelTap)];
[label addGestureRecognizer:tapGesture];

The trick is to enable user interaction.

Solution 2

UILabel inherits from UIView which inherits from UIResponder. All UIresponder objects can handle touch events. So in your class file which knows about your view (which contains the UIlabel) implement:

-(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet*)touches withEvent:(UIEvent*)event;

In interface builder set the UILabel's tag value. when touches occur in your touchesBegan method, check the tag value of the view to which the tag belongs:

UITouch *touch = [touches anyObject];

if(touch.view.tag == MY_TAG_VAL)
label.text = @"new text";

You connect your code in your class file with the UILabel object in interface builder by declaring your UILabel instance variable with the IBOutlet prefix:

IBOutlet UILabel *label;

Then in interface builder you can connect them up.

Solution 3

You can use a UIButton, make it transparent, i.e. custom type without an image, and add a UILabel on it (centered). Then wire up the normal button events.

Solution 4

Swift 3

You have an IBOutlet

@IBOutlet var label: UILabel!

In which you enable user interaction and add a gesture recognizer

label.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(userDidTapLabel(tapGestureRecognizer:)))
label.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)

And finally, handle the tap

func userDidTapLabel(tapGestureRecognizer: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
  // Your code goes here
}

View more solutions

Comments

[stitz]

I agree, the custom button type should give you a UILabel type user experience.

[midas06]

One note, you have to make sure you check "User Interaction Enabled" in interface builder, or this won't work.

[midas06]

I hit one problem with this method. It worked fine when the view controller was loaded directly, but when i created a nav controller, pushed the controller containing the label to the nav controller and then displaying it, the touches don't seem to get to the label anymore. Any Ideas?

[Remover]

if it's the same view controller class that you're pushing it should work. sounds like there may be some other little problem. maybe start another question and post some code

[Brian Moeskau]

+1, nice and simple. I had tried this before by setting a normal button to opactiy 0 which did not work, but the tip to change the type to custom worked perfectly.

[Eiko]

The opacity will effect the button and all of its subviews, so opacity=0 will make the whole thing invisible.

[Defragged]

A similar method that doesn't require tags is to simply check if touch.view is equal to the outlet you set for the label. I prefer this, as it means I don't have to keep track of the tags.

[James Boutcher]

Yikes. This is a hack compared to the other solutions in this thread. Use a tap gesture recognizer on a label if you want to recognize a tap gesture on a label. (See how it reads like it was meant for this?)

[kevinl]

great solution. I recommend that you don't set any tag to be 0 because clicking anywhere else has a tag value of 0. This is because your view will most likely have a tag value of 0. Otherwise, you can set the tag of your view to something like -1 and then you can use the tag value of 0 somewhere else i.e. a button

[learner]

What if I have multiple labels? how might I differentiate which one was tapped?

[thedjaney]

@learner try the tag property. make sure to use labelTap: instead of labelTap. and use - (void) labelTap:(id)sender;.

[h4labs]

@thedjaney The sender is the UITapGestureRecognizer, not the UILabel

[Admin]

TapGestureRecognizer is not the same as touch up inside, and loses human interface conformance and accessibility.

[Admin]

This is a far, far better solution because buttons handle touchupinside rather than just taps (begin).

[Eiko]

@JamesBoutcher Look at the date of this question. UIGestureRecognizer was brand new (on the iPhone a few days). If you wanted to target anything older, it was not available. Today, I consider it a valid alternative. Just use the method that shows the intents best - if it really behaves like a button, use a button; if it's just some "text with a custom action not meant to be clicked regularly" take a gesture recognizer.

[DJTano]

@h4labs you can use UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGesture = sender; then get the label tag with tapGesture.view.tag

[POSIX-compliant]

I had to add @objc to userDidTapLabel to get this to work. Might be a swift 4 thing.