Dismiss keyboard by touching background of UITableView

Question

I have a UITableView with UITextFields as cells. I would like to dismiss the keyboard when the background of the UITableView is touched. I'm trying to do this by creating a UIButton the size of the UITableView and placing it behind the UITableView. The only problem is the UIButton is catching all the touches even when the touch is on the UITableView. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I did it like this:

Create a method in your TableViewController to de-activate first responder (which would be your TextBox at that point)

- (BOOL)findAndResignFirstResonder: (UIView*) stView
{
    if (stView.isFirstResponder) {
        [stView resignFirstResponder];
        return YES;     
    }
    for (UIView *subView in stView.subviews) {
        if ([self findAndResignFirstResonder: subView])
            return YES;
    }
    return NO;
}

In didSelectRowAtIndexPath method call previous method:

- (void) tableView: (UITableView*) tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath: (NSIndexPath*) indexPath {
...
    [self findAndResignFirstResonder: self.view];
...
}

Answer 2

Why do you want to create a table full of textfields? You should be using a detailed view for each row that contains the text fields. When you push your detailedview, ensure that you call "[myTextField becomeFirstResponder]" so that the user can start editing with just one click away from the table list.

Answer 3

If you're willing to subclass (ugh!) your table view, something like this might work:

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {

   BOOL backgroundTouched = YES;

   for (UITouch *touch in touches) {
      CGPoint location = [touch locationInView:self];
      for (UITableViewCell *cell in self.visibleCells) {
         if (CGRectContainsPoint(cell.frame, location)) {
            backgroundTouched = NO;
            break;
         }
      }
   }

   if (backgroundTouched) {
      for (UITableViewCell *cell in self.visibleCells) {
         // This presumes the first subview is the text field you want to resign.
         [[cell.contentView.subviews objectAtIndex:0] resignFirstResponder];
      }
   }

   [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];
}

Answer 4

@interface DismissableUITableView : UITableView {
}
@end

@implementation DismissableUITableView

- (void) touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
 [self.superview endEditing:YES];
 [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];
}

@end

Then make sure that in your Nib file you set the type of your UITableView to DismissableUITableView .....maybe i could have thought of a better name for this class, but you get the point.

Answer 5

UITableView is a subclass of UIScrollView.

The way I did it was to listen for a scroll event by the user and then resignFirstResponder. Here's the UIScrollViewDelegate method to implement in your code;

- (void)scrollViewWillBeginDragging:(UIScrollView *)scrollView

When approaching these sorts of problems I've found the best way is to research the delegate protocols for each object and those of the parent classes (in this case UITableViewDelegate, UIScrollViewDelegate. The number of events NS objects fires is quite large and comprehensive. It's also easier implementing a protocol then subclassing anything.