Slide gesture with custom back button freezes the root view controller

Question

I have custom back buttons all over my app and it looks like navigation controller does not like it.

So, I want the iOS7 swipe-to-go-back gesture to work along with my custom back buttons. Searched and tried different ways but none seems to be promising. The closest I could get is with http://keighl.com/post/ios7-interactive-pop-gesture-custom-back-button/. However, Now when I keep pushing and popping the navigation stack, after sometime the rootViewController in the stack stops responding to any touch.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Subclassing UINavigationController, like keighl is suggesting, is the right approach imo. But he's missing a check for the root view controller to avoid freezing when the gesture is executed on the root view. Here's a modified version with the additional check:

CBNavigationController.h:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface CBNavigationController : UINavigationController <UIGestureRecognizerDelegate, UINavigationControllerDelegate>
@end

CBNavigationController.m:

#import "CBNavigationController.h"

@interface CBNavigationController ()
@end

@implementation CBNavigationController
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    NSLog(@"%s",__FUNCTION__);
    __weak CBNavigationController *weakSelf = self;

    if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)])
    {
        self.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = weakSelf;
        self.delegate = weakSelf;
    }
}

- (void)pushViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController animated:(BOOL)animated
{
    NSLog(@"%s",__FUNCTION__);

    if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)])
        self.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = NO;

    [super pushViewController:viewController animated:animated];
}

#pragma mark UINavigationControllerDelegate

- (void)navigationController:(UINavigationController *)navigationController
       didShowViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController
                    animated:(BOOL)animate
{
    NSLog(@"%s",__FUNCTION__);

    // Enable the gesture again once the new controller is shown AND is not the root view controller
    if (viewController == self.viewControllers.firstObject)
    {
        if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)])
            self.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = NO;
    }
    else
    {
        if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)])
            self.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = YES;
    }
}

@end

objective-c