Add tap action to custom view in NavigationController - ios

Question

I am trying to add an action to my custom view in my navigation bar. I have it showing up fine, but I can't figure out how to add a tap action to it.
I have tried adding a button inside the view and handling it there. I have tried making my navigation controller a delegate of the custom view, I have tried adding a tap gesture recognizer to the view in the nav controller. Nothing has worked. Any advice or feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
My custom Navigation Controller:
class MainNavVC: UINavigationController {
var loadStatus = LoadStatus()
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
// load status
loadStatus.bounds = CGRect(x: -24, y: -6, width: 0, height: 0)
let loadStatusButton = UIBarButtonItem(customView: loadStatus)
self.viewControllers.last?.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = loadStatusButton
let tap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(loadStatusPressed))
loadStatus.addGestureRecognizer(tap)
loadStatus.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
}
#objc func loadStatusPressed(recognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) {
print("tapped")
let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Load Status", message: "When you are under a load, you are being tracked by a shipper.", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Ok", style: .default, handler: nil))
present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
}
My custom view:
class LoadStatus: UIView {
#IBOutlet var contentView: UIView!
private func commonInit(){
Bundle.main.loadNibNamed("LoadStatus", owner: self, options: nil)
addSubview(contentView)
}
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
commonInit()
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder ) {
super.init(coder: aDecoder)
commonInit()
}
}

Answer 1

As of iOS11 you need to give your customview a width and height constraint, like:
loadStatus.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 44).isActive = true
loadStatus.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 44).isActive = true
Otherwise your customview may be visible but internally zerosized. It's a bug.
(I assume UINavigationController is now (iOS11+) constraint-based but not before!?)

Answer 2

Adding a tap gesture recognizer for a UIBarButtonItem seems to be kind of weird, by default, when creating a new UIBarButtonItem -programatically as shown in your code snippet- by using init(barButtonSystemItem:target:action:), you would be able to add the desired action for the bar button, example:
class ViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
// like this:
let loadStatusButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: "Button Title", style: .plain, target: self, action: #selector(loadStatusPressed))
// ...
}
#objc func loadStatusPressed() {
print("tapped")
let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Load Status", message: "When you are under a load, you are being tracked by a shipper.", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Ok", style: .default, handler: nil))
present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
}
And for the purpose of setting the custom view, you could simply add:
loadStatusButton.customView = loadStatus
Thus there is no need to add a tap gesture for a bar button.