What's the correct way to add a UIImageView or UITextView to a custom UIButton class? - ios

Question

I've built a custom UIButton class but I'm struggling to add objects without affecting the behaviour of the button. I've shown the class below. When I use the class in my main code and add a target, the button only works in areas not covered by the image or text. How can I add objects and have the entire button area behave in the same way?
class TestButton: UIButton {
var myText: UITextView!
var myImageView: UIImageView!
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
backgroundColor = UIColor.blue
let myImage = UIImage(named: "AnImage")
myImageView = UIImageView(image: myImage)
myImageView.frame = CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: (myImage?.size.width)!, height: (myImage?.size.height)!)
addSubview(myImageView)
myText = UITextView()
myText.font = UIFont(name: "Courier", size: 12)!
myText.isEditable = false
addSubview(myText)
}
}

Answer 1

A guess here, hope it works.
UIImageView and UITextView does not normally allow "user interaction", meaning that the user can not tap them and expect the app to react based on that. That is probably why, when you tap on the Image view, that event is not passed through to the UIButton below.
Fortunately the fix is easy. You can set the boolean property isUserInteractionEnabled to true and you should be in business again.
So in your case:
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
backgroundColor = UIColor.blue
let myImage = UIImage(named: "AnImage")
myImageView = UIImageView(image: myImage)
myImageView.frame = CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: (myImage?.size.width)!, height: (myImage?.size.height)!)
myImageView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
addSubview(myImageView)
myText = UITextView()
myText.font = UIFont(name: "Courier", size: 12)!
myText.isEditable = false
myText.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
addSubview(myText)
}
Update (after your comment)
OK so I just tried to create a quick project with your button and...it seems to work, I can click on the imageView and I can click on the label and still get an answer from my function, so there must be some difference in how we've set this up.
Here is my MyButton button, awfully close to the one you've made, the only difference is that I've added a backgroundColor to myImageView, a frame on myText and isUserInteractionEnabled = false on myText
class MyButton: UIButton {
var myText: UITextView!
var myImageView: UIImageView!
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
backgroundColor = UIColor.blue
let myImage = UIImage(named: "AnImage")
myImageView = UIImageView(image: myImage)
myImageView.frame = CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: (myImage?.size.width)!, height: (myImage?.size.height)!)
myImageView.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
addSubview(myImageView)
myText = UITextView()
myText.font = UIFont(name: "Courier", size: 12)!
myText.frame = CGRect(x: 10, y: 80, width: 100, height: 30)
myText.isEditable = false
myText.isUserInteractionEnabled = false
addSubview(myText)
}
}
And here is my ViewController where I use the button
import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let button = MyButton(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 100, width: 200, height: 200))
button.myText.text = "Hello"
button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(didTapButton(_:)), for: .touchUpInside)
view.addSubview(button)
// Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
}
override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
// Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}
#IBAction func didTapButton(_ sender: MyButton) {
print("It's alive!!")
}
}
Which gives me this pretty UI
And when I tap either the red image, the blue button itself or the "Hello" label I can see this in my console:
It's alive!!
It's alive!!
It's alive!!
So the good news is that it seems to work, now we just need to figure out what the difference between your setup and my setup is :)
Hope that works and helps.