Question

How do I add an action to a custom view? Similar to how UIButtons have an action I can connect in Inteface Builder. I can’t use a SEL like below because it’s not an object, what do I use?

 @property(nonatomic, weak) IBOutlet SEL action;

Answer 1

You want to make your custom object a subclass of UIControl (which is a subclass of UIView). Then you get all the target/action methods… if you are doing this in code the one to explore will be

– addTarget:action:forControlEvents:

If you make a custom UIControl object, then you can drag out a custom view in the storyboard and set it’s custom class to your customControl. Then you can drag out IBAction links to your viewController just as if it were a button.

Here is how to make one in code…

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    UIControl* customControl = [[UIControl alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(20, 20, 200, 200)];
    customControl.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
    [customControl addTarget:self 
                      action:@selector(customAction:) 
            forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    [self.view addSubview:customControl];
}

- (void)customAction:(id)sender
{
    NSLog (@"touched");
}