How to get “deselect” notification on UILabel

Question

I have UILabel and I need it to be able support copy&paste (actually only copy as it is read only). I subclassed UILabel to support copy and it works fine. I also added text highlight so user knows what exactly is he copying when he clicks on label.

My problem is that I don't know how to cancel that highlight when user clicks somewhere else. Copy bubble disappears, but I don't get any callback so text remains highlighted. Is there special callback I missed that I can use or do I have to come up with some dirty hack? Or is there perhaps more standard way of highlighting text in UILabel that I am not aware of that would be handled automatically like Copy bubble?

Here my custom UILabel code:

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

- (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];

        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]) {
        //UIMenuController *menu = [UIMenuController sharedMenuController];
        //[menu setMenuVisible:NO animated:YES];
        //[menu update];
        [self resignFirstResponder];
    }
    else if([self becomeFirstResponder]) {
        //UIMenuController *menu = [UIMenuController sharedMenuController];
        //[menu setTargetRect:self.bounds inView:self];
        //[menu setMenuVisible:YES animated:YES];
    }
}

- (void)setHighlighted:(BOOL)hl {
    [super setHighlighted:hl];

    [self setNeedsLayout];
}

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    [super drawRect:rect];

    if(self.highlighted) {
        CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
        CGContextSetRGBFillColor(ctx, 0.3, 0.8, 1.0, 0.3);
        CGContextAddRect(ctx, CGRectMake(0, 0, [self textRectForBounds:self.frame limitedToNumberOfLines:1].size.width, self.frame.size.height));
        CGContextFillPath(ctx);
    }
}

Any help appreciated!

Answer 1

Personally i would use a UITextView with option of editable set to NO.

otherwise, if you want more control, subclass your topmost fullscreen view (or window) that your UILabel is a child of.

override - (UIView *)hitTest:(CGPoint)point withEvent:(UIEvent *)event;

and if the hit view is not your UILabel, then create a NSNotification which you handle in your UILabel subclass, and do the deselect.

BTW, You should ALWAYS handle touchesCanceled also!