Handling UIPanGestureRecognizer gestures for multiple Views (one covers the other) - ios

Question

Sorry for such a long question, but felt I should convey what I have tried.
I've got a view viewA within a navigation controller. I am then adding a subview viewB (that contains a UITableView) to viewA and offsetting its origin height so that it covers only half the screen (with the other half overflowing off out the bottom of the screen). I want to be able to then drag this viewB upwards but it get stopped when it hits the bottom of the navigation bar and similarly get stopped when dragged back down when it hits the origin offset point. This I have achieved successfully.
However, I want the UITableView interaction to only be enabled when viewB is in its upper position and thus not respond to gestures in any other position. Essentially, dragging viewB up so that it completely covers viewA should enable interaction with the UITableView.
The tricky part here is that I want it to do the following:
If viewB is in its upper position so that it is covering the screen, the UITableView content offset is 0 (i.e. we are at the top of the table) and the user makes a pan gesture downwards, the gesture should not interact with the UITableView but should move viewB downwards.
Any other pan gesture in the above condition should be an interaction with the UITableView.
If viewB is in its upper position so that it is covering the screen, the UITableView content offset is NOT at 0 (i.e. we are NOT at the top of the table) and the user makes a pan gesture downwards, the gesture should interact with the UITableView.
I've been very close to achieving this but I can't get it quite right.
Attempts So Far
I'm using a UIPanGestureRecognizer to handle the dragging of the view. I have tried adding this to:
viewB with the UITableView user interaction initially disabled. This allows me to drag viewB up and down without interfering with the UITableView. Once viewB is in its upper position I enable UITableView user interaction which then correctly allows me to interact with the UITableView without moving viewB.
However, by enabling UITableView user interaction, this means touches never reach the UIPanGestureRecognizer, meaning I can never detect for the scenario described in point (1.) above and thus can't re-disable UITableView user interaction to make viewB movable again.
Maybe it is possible to do it this way by overriding the gesture recognition methods used by the UITableView? If this is possible can anyone point me in the right direction?
a new view added in front of the UITableView. I thought maybe I could forward the touch gestures to the UITableView behind it when necessary but I still haven't found a way to do this.
All I have been able to do is disable the gesture recognizer which allows me to interact with the UITableView, but then I have the same issue as above. I can't detect when to re-enable it.
the UITableView within viewB. This seemed to be the most promising way so far. By setting the return values of the following methods I can enable and disable recognition of either viewB and the UITableView.
func gestureRecognizer(gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer, shouldReceiveTouch touch: UITouch) -> Bool {
if pulloverVC.view.frame.origin.y == bottomNavbarY &&
pulloverVC.tableView?.contentOffset.y == 0 { // need to add gesture direction check to this condition
viewBisAtTop = true
return false // disable pullover control
}
return true // enable pullover control
}
func gestureRecognizer(gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer, shouldRecognizeSimultaneouslyWithGestureRecognizer otherGestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
if (gestureRecognizer as! UIPanGestureRecognizer).velocityInView(view).y < 0 && viewBisAtTop { // gesture direction check not wanted here
return true // enable tableview control
}
viewBisAtTop = false
return false // disable tableview control
}
The top method is called first when a gesture is made (I have checked with print statements) followed by the bottom method. By making different combinations of true/false for the 2 methods I can alternate interaction between viewB and the UITableView.
To detect whether the user is swiping downwards I am calling velocityInView() on the recognizer (as shown in the bottom method). I was intending on making this check in the top methods if statement and I think this would work, however, although velocityInView() works fine in the bottom method, it does not in the top one (velocity is always 0).
I have scoured SO for some solution and find many similar queries about gesture handling for views that cover each other, but these all seem to be regarding one gesture type, e.g. pinch, on one view, and another type, e.g. pan, on the other. In my case the gesture type is the same for both.
Maybe someone has a clever idea? Or maybe this is actually very simple to do and I have made this incredibly complicated? xD

Answer 1

Managed to get this working.
Of the methods described in my question above I removed the top one keeping just this (it has a few changes):
func gestureRecognizer(gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer, shouldRecognizeSimultaneouslyWithGestureRecognizer otherGestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
if ((gestureRecognizer as! UIPanGestureRecognizer).velocityInView(view).y < 0
|| pulloverVC.tableView.contentOffset.y > 0)
&& pulloverVC.view.frame.origin.y == bottomNavbarY {
return true // enable tableview control
}
return false
}
The if statement checks that the covering UITableView is in its upper position AND that either the user is is not dragging downwards or the table content is offset (we are not at the top of the table). If this is true, then we return true to enable the tableview.
After this method is called, the standard method implemented to handle my pan gesture is called. In here I have an if statement that sort of checks the opposite to above, and if that's true, it prevents control over the covering viewB from moving:
func handlePanGesture(recognizer: UIPanGestureRecognizer) {
let gestureIsDraggingFromTopToBottom = (recognizer.velocityInView(view).y > 0)
if pulloverVC.view.frame.origin.y != bottomNavbarY || (pulloverVC.view.frame.origin.y == bottomNavbarY && gestureIsDraggingFromTopToBottom && pulloverVC.tableView.contentOffset.y == 0) {
...
This now keeps the UITableView interaction off unless its parent view viewB is in the correct position, and when it is, disables the movement of viewB so that only interaction with the UITableView works.
Then when, we are at the top of the table, and drag downwards, interaction with the UITableView is re-disabled and interaction with its parent view viewB is re-enabled.
A wordy post and answer, but if someone can make sense of what I'm saying, hopefully it will help you.