How to transition to AVPlayerViewController from a custom view? - ios

Question

I have a custom view:
class MediaPlayerView: UIView {
var mediaURL: URL? {
didSet {
determineMediaType()
}
}
let videoExtensions = ["mov"]
override init (frame : CGRect) {
super.init(frame : frame)
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: aDecoder)
}
func determineMediaType() {
let url = self.mediaURL
let pathExtention = url?.pathExtension
if videoExtensions.contains(pathExtention!) {
print("Movie URL: \(String(describing: url))")
setupVideo(url: url!)
} else {
print("Image URL: \(String(describing: url))")
setupImage(url: url!)
}
}
func setupVideo(url: URL) {
let playButton = UIImage(named: "Play Triangle")
let playButtonView = UIImageView(image: playButton!)
let singleTap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(tapDetected))
playButtonView.addGestureRecognizer(singleTap)
playButtonView.center = self.center
playButtonView.frame.size.width = self.frame.size.width/5
playButtonView.frame.size.height = self.frame.size.height/5
playButtonView.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth,.flexibleHeight]
playButtonView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
self.addSubview(playButtonView)
}
#objc func tapDetected() {
print("tap!")
let player = AVPlayer(url: self.mediaURL!)
let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
controller.player = player
self.window?.rootViewController?.present(controller, animated: true) {
player.play()
}
}
func setupImage(url: URL) {
let imageView = UIImageView()
imageView.frame = self.bounds
imageView.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth,.flexibleHeight]
self.addSubview(imageView)
imageView.kf.setImage(with: url)
}
}
However when I click the play button, I get the following error:
Warning: Attempt to present <AVPlayerViewController: 0x7fe8b200b000> on <SweatNet.MainTabBarController: 0x7fe8b4816400> whose view is not in the window hierarchy!
It comes on this line: self.window?.rootViewController?.present. I think It is getting confused by me calling the rootViewController (which seems to be SweatNet.MainTabBarController). I want to it to call SweatNet.TagViewController. This is the one which contains the cell which contains the custom MediaPlayerView, but I don't understand how to get a reference to this.

Answer 1

Try this:
class func topViewController(controller: UIViewController? = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow?.rootViewController) -> UIViewController? {
if let navigationController = controller as? UINavigationController {
return topViewController(controller: navigationController.visibleViewController)
}
if let tabController = controller as? UITabBarController {
if let selected = tabController.selectedViewController {
return topViewController(controller: selected)
}
}
if let presented = controller?.presentedViewController {
return topViewController(controller: presented)
}
return controller
}
Write your method as:
#objc func tapDetected() {
print("tap!")
let player = AVPlayer(url: self.mediaURL!)
let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
controller.player = player
topViewController().present(controller, animated: true) {
player.play()
}
}
This will return you top vc in hierarchy. Hope it helps!

Answer 2

I would be interested in some feedback on this answer as I think its an example of me thinking about the iOS system the wrong way. What I eventually realized was that I was trying to put view controller code inside of a custom view. View controller code being the code to launch the AVPlayerViewController. Rather I should put this logic in my view controller.
What I did which works is use the collectionView delegate method didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath inside of the view controller where the view controller logic for the collection view is held like so:
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
if collectionView == self.collectionView {
let post = posts[indexPath.row]
if post.isVideo == true {
self.performSegue(withIdentifier: "playVideo", sender: nil)
} else {
print("is image. might go full screen one day here")
}
}
This works and I believe it is better than writing a custom aspect of the view to launch the AVPlayerViewController. But it also could be that both approaches work - I really don't know enough about iOS development to make that call. Any comments are welcome.