iOS 7 Programming Cookbook

10.5. Detecting Tap Gestures

Problem

You want to be able to detect when users tap on a view.

Solution

Create an instance of the UITapGestureRecognizer class and add it to the target view, using the addGestureRecognizer: instance method of the UIView class. Let’s have a look at the definition of the view controller:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong)
    UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGestureRecognizer;
@end

@implementation ViewController

The implementation of the viewDidLoad instance method of the view controller is as follows:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    
    /* Create the Tap Gesture Recognizer */
    self.tapGestureRecognizer = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc]
                                 initWithTarget:self
                                 action:@selector(handleTaps:)];
    
    /* The number of fingers that must be on the screen */
    self.tapGestureRecognizer.numberOfTouchesRequired = 2;
    
    /* The total number of taps to be performed before the
     gesture is recognized */
    self.tapGestureRecognizer.numberOfTapsRequired = 3;
    
    /* Add this gesture recognizer to our view */
    [self.view addGestureRecognizer:self.tapGestureRecognizer];
}

Discussion

The tap gesture recognizer is the best candidate among gesture recognizers to detect plain tap gestures. A tap event is the event triggered by the user touching and lifting his finger(s) off the screen. A tap gesture is a discrete gesture.

The locationInView: method of the UITapGestureRecognizer class can be used to detect the location of the tap event. If the tap gesture requires ...