Get the current first responder without using a private API

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; specif

Answer 1

Using Swift and with a specific UIView object this might help:

func findFirstResponder(inView view: UIView) -> UIView? {
    for subView in view.subviews as! [UIView] {
        if subView.isFirstResponder() {
            return subView
        }
        
        if let recursiveSubView = self.findFirstResponder(inView: subView) {
            return recursiveSubView
        }
    }
    
    return nil
}

Just place it in your UIViewController and use it like this:

let firstResponder = self.findFirstResponder(inView: self.view)

Take note that the result is an Optional value so it will be nil in case no firstResponder was found in the given views subview hierarchy.

Answer 2

Just it case here is Swift version of awesome Jakob Egger's approach:

import UIKit

private weak var currentFirstResponder: UIResponder?

extension UIResponder {

    static func firstResponder() -> UIResponder? {
        currentFirstResponder = nil
        UIApplication.sharedApplication().sendAction(#selector(self.findFirstResponder(_:)), to: nil, from: nil, forEvent: nil)
        return currentFirstResponder
    }

    func findFirstResponder(sender: AnyObject) {
        currentFirstResponder = self
    }

}

Answer 3

You can choose the following UIView extension to get it (credit by Daniel):

extension UIView {
    var firstResponder: UIView? {
        guard !isFirstResponder else { return self }
        return subviews.first(where: {$0.firstResponder != nil })
    }
}

Answer 4

This is what I did to find what UITextField is the firstResponder when the user clicks Save/Cancel in a ModalViewController:

    NSArray *subviews = [self.tableView subviews];

for (id cell in subviews ) 
{
    if ([cell isKindOfClass:[UITableViewCell class]]) 
    {
        UITableViewCell *aCell = cell;
        NSArray *cellContentViews = [[aCell contentView] subviews];
        for (id textField in cellContentViews) 
        {
            if ([textField isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) 
            {
                UITextField *theTextField = textField;
                if ([theTextField isFirstResponder]) {
                    [theTextField resignFirstResponder];
                }

            }
        }

    }

}