Finding the direction of scrolling in a UIScrollVi

Question

I have a UIScrollView with only horizontal scrolling allowed, and I would like to know which direction (left, right) the user scrolls. What I did was to subclass the UIScrollView and override the touchesMoved method:

- (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    [super touchesMoved:touches withEvent:event];

    UITouch *touch = [touches anyObject];
    float now = [touch locationInView:self].x;
    float before = [touch previousLocationInView:self].x;
    NSLog(@"%f %f", before, now);
    if (now > before){
        right = NO;
        NSLog(@"LEFT");
    }
    else{
        right = YES;
        NSLog(@"RIGHT");

    }

}

But this method sometimes doesn't get called at all when I move. What do you think?

Answer 1

When paging is turned on,you could use these code.

- (void)scrollViewDidEndDecelerating:(UIScrollView *)scrollView
{
    self.lastPage = self.currentPage;
    CGFloat pageWidth = _mainScrollView.frame.size.width;
    self.currentPage = floor((_mainScrollView.contentOffset.x - pageWidth / 2) / pageWidth) + 1;
    if (self.lastPage < self.currentPage) {
        //go right
        NSLog(@"right");
    }else if(self.lastPage > self.currentPage){
        //go left
        NSLog(@"left");
    }else if (self.lastPage == self.currentPage){
        //same page
        NSLog(@"same page");
    }
}

Answer 2

I checked some of the answer and elaborated on AnswerBot answer by wrapping everything in a drop in UIScrollView category. The "lastContentOffset" is saved inside the uiscrollview instead and then its just a matter of calling :

- (void)scrollViewWillBeginDragging:(UIScrollView *)scrollView {
  [scrollView setLastContentOffset:scrollView.contentOffset];
}

- (void)scrollViewDidEndDragging:(UIScrollView *)scrollView willDecelerate:(BOOL)decelerate {
  if (scrollView.scrollDirectionX == ScrollDirectionRight) {
    //Do something with your views etc
  }
  if (scrollView.scrollDirectionY == ScrollDirectionUp) {
    //Do something with your views etc
  }
}

Source code at https://github.com/tehjord/UIScrollViewScrollingDirection

Answer 3

Swift 4:

For the horizontal scrolling you can simply do :

if scrollView.panGestureRecognizer.translation(in: scrollView.superview).x > 0 {
   print("left")
} else {
   print("right")
}

For vertical scrolling change .x with .y

Answer 4

In iOS8 Swift I used this method:

override func scrollViewDidScroll(scrollView: UIScrollView){

    var frame: CGRect = self.photoButton.frame
    var currentLocation = scrollView.contentOffset.y

    if frame.origin.y > currentLocation{
        println("Going up!")
    }else if frame.origin.y < currentLocation{
        println("Going down!")
    }

    frame.origin.y = scrollView.contentOffset.y + scrollHeight
    photoButton.frame = frame
    view.bringSubviewToFront(photoButton)

}

I have a dynamic view which changes locations as the user scrolls so the view can seem like it stayed in the same place on the screen. I am also tracking when user is going up or down.

Here is also an alternative way:

func scrollViewWillEndDragging(scrollView: UIScrollView, withVelocity velocity: CGPoint, targetContentOffset: UnsafeMutablePointer<CGPoint>) {
    if targetContentOffset.memory.y < scrollView.contentOffset.y {
        println("Going up!")
    } else {
        println("Going down!")
    }
}

Answer 5

I prefer to do some filtering, based on @memmons's answer

In Objective-C:

// in the private class extension
@property (nonatomic, assign) CGFloat lastContentOffset;

// in the class implementation
- (void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView {

    if (fabs(self.lastContentOffset - scrollView.contentOffset.x) > 20 ) {
        self.lastContentOffset = scrollView.contentOffset.x;
    }

    if (self.lastContentOffset > scrollView.contentOffset.x) {
        //  Scroll Direction Left
        //  do what you need to with scrollDirection here.
    } else {
        //  omitted 
        //  if (self.lastContentOffset < scrollView.contentOffset.x)

        //  do what you need to with scrollDirection here.
        //  Scroll Direction Right
    } 
}

When tested in - (void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView:

NSLog(@"lastContentOffset: --- %f,   scrollView.contentOffset.x : --- %f", self.lastContentOffset, scrollView.contentOffset.x);

self.lastContentOffset changes very fast, the value gap is nearly 0.5f.

It is not necessary.

And occasionally, when handled in accurate condition, your orientation maybe get lost. (implementation statements skipped sometimes)

such as :

- (void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView{

    CGFloat viewWidth = scrollView.frame.size.width;

    self.lastContentOffset = scrollView.contentOffset.x;
    // Bad example , needs value filtering

    NSInteger page = scrollView.contentOffset.x / viewWidth;

    if (page == self.images.count + 1 && self.lastContentOffset < scrollView.contentOffset.x ){
          //  Scroll Direction Right
          //  do what you need to with scrollDirection here.
    }
   ....

In Swift 4:

var lastContentOffset: CGFloat = 0

func scrollViewDidScroll(_ scrollView: UIScrollView) {

     if (abs(lastContentOffset - scrollView.contentOffset.x) > 20 ) {
         lastContentOffset = scrollView.contentOffset.x;
     }

     if (lastContentOffset > scrollView.contentOffset.x) {
          //  Scroll Direction Left
          //  do what you need to with scrollDirection here.
     } else {
         //  omitted
         //  if (self.lastContentOffset < scrollView.contentOffset.x)

         //  do what you need to with scrollDirection here.
         //  Scroll Direction Right
    }
}

Answer 6

If you work with UIScrollView and UIPageControl, this method will also change the PageControl's page view.

  func scrollViewWillEndDragging(scrollView: UIScrollView, withVelocity velocity: CGPoint, targetContentOffset: UnsafeMutablePointer<CGPoint>) {

    let targetOffset = targetContentOffset.memory.x
    let widthPerPage = scrollView.contentSize.width / CGFloat(pageControl.numberOfPages)

    let currentPage = targetOffset / widthPerPage
    pageControl.currentPage = Int(currentPage)
}

Thanks @Esq 's Swift code.