long press gesture on table view cell

Question

I want two interactions on a table view cell: normal tap and long press. I used the answer to the following to help me get started:

Long press on UITableView

The problem with that is if I do a long press on a valid cell, the cell will highlight blue, and the long press gesture does not fire (it thinks its just a simple tap). However, if I start the long press gesture on a non-valid cell, then slide my finger over to a valid cell then release, it works just fine.

Answer 1

There is probably a better answer out there, but here is one way to do it:

First create a long press gesture recognizer on the table view itself.

UILongPressGestureRecognizer* longPressRecognizer = [[UILongPressGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(onLongPress:)];
[self.tableView addGestureRecognizer:longPressRecognizer];

Then, handle it with a routine that can find the selected row:

-(void)onLongPress:(UILongPressGestureRecognizer*)pGesture
{
if (pGesture.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateRecognized)
{
    //Do something to tell the user!
}
if (pGesture.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateEnded)
{
    UITableView* tableView = (UITableView*)self.view;
    CGPoint touchPoint = [pGesture locationInView:self.view];
    NSIndexPath* row = [tableView indexPathForRowAtPoint:touchPoint];
    if (row != nil) {
        //Handle the long press on row
    }
}
}

I haven't tried it, but I think you could keep the row from showing selection by making the gesture recognizers on the table view wait for the long press to fail.

Answer 2

I came across the same problem and found a good solution. (at least on iOS 7)

Add this UILongPressGestureRecognizer to the cell itself.

self.longPressGesture = [[UILongPressGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(onSelfLongpressDetected:)];
[self addGestureRecognizer:self.longPressGesture];

Its weird but important to init with the target to self, AND also add the gestureRecognizer again to self and the method onSelfLongpressDetectedgets called.