Real popover view programmatically on iPhone - ios

Question

EDIT:
Added approach 3 (see comments below).
I want to create little popovers in my app but I can't use the storyboard since the anchor points for those popovers will be UIControls that the user creates.
I want to create real popovers like those described here (not fullscreen ones). It works great using the storyboard but in this case i need it to work without segues.
Also I found this post where the person tries to do something very similiar. I tried to use the solution from that post as below in //approach 1. In //approach 2 I tried the solution on this site (even though it's for iPads only I think but I was out of ideas...).
// long press gesture: show additional control elements
func showLongPressMenu(recognizer: UILongPressGestureRecognizer) {
// approach 1
let newPopoverVC1 = UIViewController(nibName: "LinkAreaPopupView", bundle: NSBundle.mainBundle())
newPopoverVC1.modalPresentationStyle = .Popover
newPopoverVC1.preferredContentSize = CGSizeMake(137.0, 28.0)
var newPopoverController = newPopoverVC1.popoverPresentationController!
newPopoverController.delegate = self
newPopoverController.permittedArrowDirections = .Any
newPopoverController.sourceView = ???
newPopoverController.sourceRect = ???
presentViewController(newPopoverVC1, animated: true, completion: nil)
// approach 2
let newPopoverVC2 = UIViewController(nibName: "LinkAreaPopupView", bundle: NSBundle.mainBundle())
newPopoverVC2.modalPresentationStyle = .Popover
let popAnchorRect = self.frame
let newPopover = UIPopoverController(contentViewController: newPopoverVC2)
newPopover.presentPopoverFromRect(popAnchorRect, inView: ???, permittedArrowDirections: .Any, animated: true)
// approach 3
let vc = UIViewController()
vc.preferredContentSize = CGSizeMake(137.0, 28.0)
vc.modalPresentationStyle = .Popover
if let pres = vc.popoverPresentationController {
pres.delegate = self
}
// THIS DOES NOT WORK
self.superview.presentViewController(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)
let popView = LinkAreaPopupView()
vc.view.addSubview(popView)
popView.frame = vc.view.bounds
popView.autoresizingMask = .FlexibleWidth | .FlexibleHeight
if let pop = vc.popoverPresentationController {
pop.sourceView = (self as UIView)
pop.sourceRect = (self as UIView).bounds
}
}
And the delegate function:
// don't allow to substitute the presentation style of popover controllers (to fullscreen for example)
func adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController(controller: UIPresentationController) -> UIModalPresentationStyle {
return .None
}
The "LinkAreaPopupView" is a XIB file containing the menu I want to show.
My problem is that the class that has this code is a sublass of UIControl and will be created by the user. It doesn't know the "presentViewController()" function. The "presentPopoverFromRect()" function is not allowed to be called on iPhones (throws an error saying something about iPads). And obviously I'm missing some arguments too (the "???" parts).
Hope I didn't forget anything important. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

After hours of trying I got it working. Together with this tutorial video which shows how to use views from XIB files and the comment from #matt I achieved to show popups from UIControls.
To instantiate my XIB file I created a UIView sublcass like this:
import UIKit
class LinkAreaPopupView: UIView {
// outlets
#IBOutlet var view: UIView!
#IBOutlet weak var btnDeleteArea: UIButton!
#IBOutlet weak var btnLinkTo: UIButton!
required init(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: aDecoder)
NSBundle.mainBundle().loadNibNamed("LinkAreaPopupView", owner: self, options: nil)
self.addSubview(self.view)
}
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
NSBundle.mainBundle().loadNibNamed("LinkAreaPopupView", owner: self, options: nil)
self.addSubview(self.view)
}
}
Then in my UIControl sublcass in the function that shall create the popups I added this:
// long press gesture: show additional control elements
func showLongPressMenu(recognizer: UILongPressGestureRecognizer) {
if recognizer.state == UIGestureRecognizerState.Began {
// approach 3 - https://github.com/mattneub/Programming-iOS-Book-Examples/blob/master/bk2ch09p477popoversOnPhone/PopoverOnPhone/ViewController.swift
let vc = UIViewController()
vc.preferredContentSize = CGSizeMake(137.0, 28.0)
vc.modalPresentationStyle = .Popover
if let pres = vc.popoverPresentationController {
pres.delegate = self
}
(self.delegate as! UIViewController).presentViewController(vc, animated: true, completion: nil)
let popView = LinkAreaPopupView()
vc.view.addSubview(popView)
popView.frame = vc.view.bounds
popView.autoresizingMask = .FlexibleWidth | .FlexibleHeight
if let pop = vc.popoverPresentationController {
pop.sourceView = (self as UIView)
pop.sourceRect = (self as UIView).bounds
}
}
}
The missing puzzle piece was to have the UIControl's delegate set to the UIViewController that lies underneath. And finally I had to cast (self.delegate as! UIViewController) because I implemented my own protocol to that delegate before and that's why I couldn't call .presentViewController(vc, animated: true, completion: nil) on it.
Voila.