UITapGestureRecognizer - make it work on touch down, not touch up?

ios, objective-c, swift, uitapgesturerecognizer

Solution

Create your custom TouchDownGestureRecognizer subclass and implement gesture in touchesBegan:

TouchDownGestureRecognizer.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface TouchDownGestureRecognizer : UIGestureRecognizer

@end

TouchDownGestureRecognizer.m

#import "TouchDownGestureRecognizer.h"
#import <UIKit/UIGestureRecognizerSubclass.h>

@implementation TouchDownGestureRecognizer
-(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{
    if (self.state == UIGestureRecognizerStatePossible) {
        self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateRecognized;
    }
}

-(void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{
    self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed;
}

-(void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{
    self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed;
}


@end

implementation:

#import "TouchDownGestureRecognizer.h"
    TouchDownGestureRecognizer *touchDown = [[TouchDownGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(handleTouchDown:)];
    [yourView addGestureRecognizer:touchDown];

-(void)handleTouchDown:(TouchDownGestureRecognizer *)touchDown{
    NSLog(@"Down");
}

Swift implementation:

import UIKit
import UIKit.UIGestureRecognizerSubclass

class TouchDownGestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer
{
    override func touchesBegan(touches: Set<UITouch>, withEvent event: UIEvent)
    {
        if self.state == .Possible
        {
            self.state = .Recognized
        }
    }

    override func touchesMoved(touches: Set<UITouch>, withEvent event: UIEvent)
    {
        self.state = .Failed
    }

    override func touchesEnded(touches: Set<UITouch>, withEvent event: UIEvent)
    {
        self.state = .Failed
    }
}

Here is the Swift syntax for 2017 to paste:

import UIKit.UIGestureRecognizerSubclass

class SingleTouchDownGestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer {
    override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent) {
        if self.state == .possible {
            self.state = .recognized
        }
    }
    override func touchesMoved(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent) {
        self.state = .failed
    }
    override func touchesEnded(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent) {
        self.state = .failed
    }
}

Note that this is a drop-in replacement for `UITap`. So in code like...

func add(tap v:UIView, _ action:Selector) {
    let t = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: action)
    v.addGestureRecognizer(t)
}

you can safely swap to....

func add(hairtriggerTap v:UIView, _ action:Selector) {
    let t = SingleTouchDownGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: action)
    v.addGestureRecognizer(t)
}

Testing shows it will not be called more than once. It works as a drop-in replacement; you can just swap between the two calls.

Problem

What I'm using the tap event for is very time-sensitive, so I'm curious if it's possible to make UITapGestureRecognizer activate when the user simply touches down, rather than requiring them to touch up as well?

Original source

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