Question

I have subclassed UILabel to provide a copy menu and would like to add some type of effect that makes the UILabel stand out when this menu is displayed.

Right now I am trying to add and remove a border. It works fine however if the user touches the label and then touches outside of the label the border won’t disappear although the copy menu does.

After adding some NSLog’s it seems like resignfirstresponder is not being called when this occurs. What happens in the responder chain when this happens and how can I get the border to disappear in this event?

Code as follows :

@implementation CopyLabel

- (BOOL)canPerformAction:(SEL)action withSender:(id)sender {
    if(action == @selector(copy:)) {
        return YES;
    }
    else {
        return [super canPerformAction:action withSender:sender];
    }
}

- (BOOL) canBecomeFirstResponder {
    return YES;
}

- (BOOL)becomeFirstResponder {
    if([super becomeFirstResponder]) {
        self.highlighted = YES; 

        UIMenuController *menu = [UIMenuController sharedMenuController];
        [menu setTargetRect:self.bounds inView:self];
        [menu setMenuVisible:YES animated:YES];

        return YES;
    }
    return NO;
}

- (BOOL)resignFirstResponder {
    if([super resignFirstResponder]) {
        self.highlighted = NO; 

        UIMenuController *menu = [UIMenuController sharedMenuController];
        [menu setMenuVisible:NO animated:YES];
        [menu update];

        NSLog(@"Resign");
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}


- (void)copy:(id)sender {
    UIPasteboard *board = [UIPasteboard generalPasteboard];
    [board setString:self.text];
    self.highlighted = NO;
    [self resignFirstResponder];
}

- (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
    if([self isFirstResponder]) {
        [self resignFirstResponder];
    }
    else if([self becomeFirstResponder]) {

    } else {
        [self resignFirstResponder];
    }
}

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    [super drawRect:rect];
    self.layer.borderColor = [UIColor blueColor].CGColor;
    self.layer.borderWidth = 0.0;
    if(self.highlighted) {
        self.layer.borderWidth = 1.0;
    }
}


@end

Answer 1

UIMenuController posts a UIMenuControllerDidHideMenuNotification. When you listen for that notification (using NSNotificationCenter) you can send resignFirstResponder to your Label at the right time.

Example:

- (id)init... {
    ...
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                             selector:@selector(editMenuHidden)
                                                 name:UIMenuControllerDidHideMenuNotification 
                                               object:nil];
    ...
}

- (void)dealloc {
    ...
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self 
                                                name:UIMenuControllerDidHideMenuNotification 
                                              object:nil];
    ...
}

- (void)editMenuHidden {
    [self resignFirstResponder];
}

...