Question

I submitted my app a little over a week ago and got the dreaded rejection email today. It tells me that my app cannot be accepted because I’m using a non-public API; specifically, it says,

The non-public API that is included in your application is firstResponder.

Now, the offending API call is actually a solution I found here on SO:

UIWindow *keyWindow = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow];
UIView   *firstResponder = [keyWindow performSelector:@selector(firstResponder)];

How do I get the current first responder on the screen? I’m looking for a way that won’t get my app rejected.

Answer 1

In one of my applications I often want the first responder to resign if the user taps on the background. For this purpose I wrote a category on UIView, which I call on the UIWindow.

The following is based on that and should return the first responder.

@implementation UIView (FindFirstResponder)
- (id)findFirstResponder
{
    if (self.isFirstResponder) {
        return self;        
    }
    for (UIView *subView in self.subviews) {
        id responder = [subView findFirstResponder];
        if (responder) return responder;
    }
    return nil;
}
@end

iOS 7+

- (id)findFirstResponder
{
    if (self.isFirstResponder) {
        return self;
    }
    for (UIView *subView in self.view.subviews) {
        if ([subView isFirstResponder]) {
            return subView;
        }
    }
    return nil;
}

Swift:

extension UIView {
    var firstResponder: UIView? {
        guard !isFirstResponder else { return self }

        for subview in subviews {
            if let firstResponder = subview.firstResponder {
                return firstResponder
            }
        }

        return nil
    }
}

Usage example in Swift:

if let firstResponder = view.window?.firstResponder {
    // do something with `firstResponder`
}