Add a UIView above all, even the navigation bar

Question

I want to display, above any other views, even the navigation bar, a kind of \"pop-up\" view that looks like this:

• full screen black background with a 0.5 alph

Answer 1

You need to add a subview to the first window with the UITextEffectsWindow type. To the first, because custom keyboards add their UITextEffectsWindow, and if you add a subview to it this won't work correctly. Also, you cannot add a subview to the last window because the keyboard, for example, is also a window and you can`t present from the keyboard window. So the best solution I found is to add subview (or even push view controller) to the first window with UITextEffectsWindow type, this window covers accessory view, navbar - everything.

let myView = MyView()
myView.frame = UIScreen.main.bounds

guard let textEffectsWindow = NSClassFromString("UITextEffectsWindow") else { return }
let window = UIApplication.shared.windows.first { window in
    window.isKind(of: textEffectsWindow)
}
window?.rootViewController?.view.addSubview(myView)

Answer 2

[self.navigationController.view addSubview:overlayView]; is what you really want

Answer 3

Swift versions for the checked response :

Swift 4 :

let view = UIView()
view.frame = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow!.frame
UIApplication.shared.keyWindow!.addSubview(view)

Swift 3.1 :

let view = UIView()
view.frame = UIApplication.sharedApplication().keyWindow!.frame 
UIApplication.sharedApplication().keyWindow!.addSubview(view)

Answer 4

Add you view as the subview of NavigationController.

[self.navigationController.navigationBar addSubview: overlayView)]

You can also add it over the window:

UIView *view = /* Your custom view */;
UIWindow *window = [UIApplication sharedApplication].keyWindow;
[window addSubview:view];

Hope this helps.. :)

Answer 5

I'd use a UIViewController subclass containing a "Container View" that embeds your others view controllers. You'll then be able to add the navigation controller inside the Container View (using the embed relationship segue for example).

See Implementing a Container View Controller

Answer 6

Here is a simple elegant solution that is working for me. You can set the z position of the navigation bar to below the view:

self.navigationController.navigationBar.layer.zPosition = -1;

Just remember to set it back to 0 when done.