UIButton not showing highlight on tap in iOS7

Question

I've looked at a ton of posts on similar things, but none of them quite match or fix this issue. Since iOS 7, whenever I add a UIButton to a UITableViewCell or even to the footerview it works "fine", meaning it receives the target action, but it doesn't show the little highlight that normally happens as you tap a UIButton. It makes the UI look funky not showing the button react to touch.

I'm pretty sure this counts as a bug in iOS7, but has anyone found a solution or could help me find one :)

Edit: I forgot to mention that it will highlight if I long hold on the button, but not a quick tap like it does if just added to a standard view.

Code:

Creating the button:

UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];
    button.titleLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:14];
    button.titleLabel.textColor = [UIColor blueColor];
    [button setTitle:@"Testing" forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    [button addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonPressed:) forControlEvents: UIControlEventTouchDown];
    button.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.frame.size.width/2, 40);

Things I've Tested:

//Removing gesture recognizers on UITableView in case they were getting in the way.

for (UIGestureRecognizer *recognizer in self.tableView.gestureRecognizers) {
   recognizer.enabled = NO;
}

//Removing gestures from the Cell

for (UIGestureRecognizer *recognizer in self.contentView.gestureRecognizers) {
       recognizer.enabled = NO;
    }

//This shows the little light touch, but this isn't the desired look

button.showsTouchWhenHighlighted = YES;

Answer 1

The accepted answer did not work at some "taps" for me .

Finally I add the bellow code in a uibutton category(/subclass),and it works a hundred percent.

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{

self.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor];
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.05 delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear animations:^{
    self.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];

} completion:^(BOOL finished)
 {
 }];
[super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];

}

Answer 2

I wrote a category extension on UITableViewCell to make this issue simple to address. It does basically the same thing as the accepted answer except I walk up the view hierarchy (as opposed to down) from the UITableViewCell contentView.

I considered a fully "automagic" solution that would make all cells added to a UITableView set their delaysContentTouches state to match the owning UITableView's delaysContentTouches state. To make this work I'd have to either swizzle UITableView, or require the developer to use a UITableView subclass. Not wanting to require either I settled on this solution which I feel is simpler and more flexible.

Category extension and sample harness here:

https://github.com/TomSwift/UITableViewCell-TS_delaysContentTouches

It's dead-simple to use:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    // using static cells from storyboard...
    UITableViewCell* cell = [super tableView: tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath: indexPath];

    cell.ts_delaysContentTouches = NO;

    cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;

    return cell;
}

Here's the code for the category:

@interface UITableViewCell (TS_delaysContentTouches)

@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL ts_delaysContentTouches;

@end

@implementation UITableViewCell (TS_delaysContentTouches)

- (UIScrollView*) ts_scrollView
{
    id sv = self.contentView.superview;
    while ( ![sv isKindOfClass: [UIScrollView class]] && sv != self )
    {
        sv = [sv superview];
    }

    return sv == self ? nil : sv;
}

- (void) setTs_delaysContentTouches:(BOOL)delaysContentTouches
{
    [self willChangeValueForKey: @"ts_delaysContentTouches"];

    [[self ts_scrollView] setDelaysContentTouches: delaysContentTouches];

    [self didChangeValueForKey: @"ts_delaysContentTouches"];
}

- (BOOL) ts_delaysContentTouches
{
    return [[self ts_scrollView] delaysContentTouches];
}

@end

Answer 3

Here's Roman B's answer in Swift 2:

for view in tableView.subviews {
    if view is UIScrollView {
        (view as? UIScrollView)!.delaysContentTouches = false
        break
    }
}

Answer 4

Slightly modified version of Chris Harrison's answer. Swift 2.3:

class HighlightButton: UIButton {
    override func touchesBegan(touches: Set<UITouch>, withEvent event: UIEvent?) {
        super.touchesBegan(touches, withEvent: event)
        NSOperationQueue.mainQueue().addOperationWithBlock { _ in self.highlighted = true }
    }

    override func touchesCancelled(touches: Set<UITouch>?, withEvent event: UIEvent?) {
        super.touchesCancelled(touches, withEvent: event)
        setDefault()
    }

    override func touchesEnded(touches: Set<UITouch>, withEvent event: UIEvent?) {
        super.touchesEnded(touches, withEvent: event)
        setDefault()
    }

    private func setDefault() {
        dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, Int64(0.1 * Double(NSEC_PER_SEC))), dispatch_get_main_queue()) {
            NSOperationQueue.mainQueue().addOperationWithBlock { _ in self.highlighted = false }
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

In Swift 3 this UIView extension can be used on the UITableViewCell. Preferably in the cellForRowAt method.

func removeTouchDelayForSubviews() {
    for subview in subviews {
        if let scrollView = subview as? UIScrollView {
            scrollView.delaysContentTouches = false
        } else {
            subview.removeTouchDelayForSubviews()
        }
    }
}