How to make UIPopoverController keep same position

Question

I can't keep popover the same position on the screen after rotation. Is there any good way to do that, because just setting some frame to popover works terrible after rotating.popover.frame = CGRectMake(someFrame); After rotation popover looks fine only if it is in the center of the screen.

Answer 1

Apple has a Q&A on exactly this issue. You can find the details here:

Technical Q&A QA1694 Handling Popover Controllers During Orientation Changes

Basically, the technique explains that in your view controller's didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation method, you will present the pop over again as follows:

- (void)didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)fromInterfaceOrientation
{
    [aPopover presentPopoverFromRect:targetRect.frame inView:self.view permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
}

For more information, have a read of the article above, and also the UIPopoverController Class Reference:

If the user rotates the device while a popover is visible, the popover controller hides the popover and then shows it again at the end of the rotation. The popover controller attempts to position the popover appropriately for you but you may have to present it again or hide it altogether in some cases. For example, when displayed from a bar button item, the popover controller automatically adjusts the position (and potentially the size) of the popover to account for changes to the position of the bar button item. However, if you remove the bar button item during the rotation, or if you presented the popover from a target rectangle in a view, the popover controller does not attempt to reposition the popover. In those cases, you must manually hide the popover or present it again from an appropriate new position. You can do this in the didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation: method of the view controller that you used to present the popover.

Answer 2

Swift 3:

    class MyClass: UIViewController, UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate {


        ...

        var popover:UIPopoverPresentationController?

        ...

        // Where you want to set the popover...
        popover = YourViewController?.popoverPresentationController
        popover?.sourceRect = CGRect(x: self.view.bounds.midX, y: self.view.bounds.midY, width: 0, height: 0)
        popover?.delegate = self

        ...

        // override didRotate...
        override func didRotate(from fromInterfaceOrientation: UIInterfaceOrientation) {
          popover?.sourceRect = CGRect(x: self.view.bounds.midX, y: self.view.bounds.midY, width: 0, height: 0)
        }

}

Answer 3

For Swift:

func popoverPresentationController(_ popoverPresentationController: UIPopoverPresentationController, willRepositionPopoverTo rect: UnsafeMutablePointer<CGRect>, in view: AutoreleasingUnsafeMutablePointer<UIView>)
{
    rect.pointee = CGRect(x: self.view.frame.size.width, y: 0, width: 1, height: 1) // Set new rect here
}

Answer 4

I have popoverPresentationController that I present on a view that has a "fake" nav bar. So I can't attach the popoverPresentationController to a barButtonItem. My popup appears in the right place but does not when the screen rotates.

So for some reason popoverPresentationController(_ popoverPresentationController: UIPopoverPresentationController, willRepositionPopoverTo rect: UnsafeMutablePointer<CGRect>, in view: AutoreleasingUnsafeMutablePointer<UIView>) does not get called for me.

To work around this (iOS 12, Swift 4.2) I added constraints to the popup in the completion closure when calling present. Now my popup stays where I would expect it too.

                present(viewController, animated: true) { [weak self] in
            DDLogDebug(String(describing: viewController.view.frame))
            if let containerView = viewController.popoverPresentationController?.containerView,
            let presentedView = viewController.popoverPresentationController?.presentedView,
            let imageView = self?.headerView.settingsButton {
                withExtendedLifetime(self) {
                    let deltaY:CGFloat = presentedView.frame.origin.y - imageView.frame.maxY
                    let topConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint.init(item: presentedView, attribute: .top, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: imageView.imageView, attribute: .bottom, multiplier: 1, constant: deltaY)
                    topConstraint?.priority = UILayoutPriority(rawValue: 999)
                    topConstraint?.isActive = true
                    let heightContraint = NSLayoutConstraint.init(item: presentedView, attribute: .height, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: containerView, attribute: .height, multiplier: 0.75, constant: -deltaY)
                    heightContraint?.isActive = true
                    let leftConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint.init(item: presentedView, attribute: .left, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: containerView, attribute: .left, multiplier: 1, constant: presentedView.frame.origin.x)
                    leftConstraint.isActive = true
                    let widthConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint.init(item: presentedView, attribute: .width, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: nil, attribute: .notAnAttribute, multiplier: 1, constant: presentedView.frame.width)
                    widthConstraint.isActive = true
                    presentedView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
                }
            }
        }

Answer 5

In iOS 7 you can use - (void)popoverController:(UIPopoverController *)popoverController willRepositionPopoverToRect:(inout CGRect *)rect inView:(inout UIView *__autoreleasing *)view to reposition your UIPopoverController's view on interface orientation change.

See the UIPopoverControllerDelegate documentation.

Answer 6

For iOS > 8 John Strickers answer helped but didn't do what I wanted it to do.

Here's the solution that worked for me. (If you want to download a full sample project it's here: https://github.com/appteur/uipopoverExample)

I created a property to hold any popover I wanted to present and also added a property to track the sourceRect and another for the view of the button I wanted the popover arrow to point at.

@property (nonatomic, weak) UIView *activePopoverBtn;
@property (nonatomic, strong) PopoverViewController *popoverVC;
@property (nonatomic, assign) CGRect sourceRect; 

The button that triggered my popover is in a UIToolbar. When tapped it runs the following method that creates and launches the popover.

-(void) buttonAction:(id)sender event:(UIEvent*)event
{
    NSLog(@"ButtonAction");

    // when the button is tapped we want to display a popover, so setup all the variables needed and present it here

    // get a reference to which button's view was tapped (this is to get 
    // the frame to update the arrow to later on rotation)
    // since UIBarButtonItems don't have a 'frame' property I found this way is easy
    UIView *buttonView          = [[event.allTouches anyObject] view];

    // set our tracker properties for when the orientation changes (handled in the viewWillTransitionToSize method above)
    self.activePopoverBtn       = buttonView;
    self.sourceRect             = buttonView.frame;

    // get our size, make it adapt based on our view bounds
    CGSize viewSize             = self.view.bounds.size;
    CGSize contentSize          = CGSizeMake(viewSize.width, viewSize.height - 100.0);

    // set our popover view controller property
    self.popoverVC = [[UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"Main" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]] instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"PopoverVC"];

    // configure using a convenience method (if you have multiple popovers this makes it faster with less code)
    [self setupPopover:self.popoverVC
        withSourceView:buttonView.superview // this will be the toolbar
            sourceRect:self.sourceRect
           contentSize:contentSize];

    [self presentViewController:self.popoverVC animated:YES completion:nil];

}

The 'setupPopover:withSourceView:sourceRect:contentSize method is simply a convenience method to set the popoverPresentationController properties if you plan to display multiple popovers and want them configured the same. It's implementation is below.

// convenience method in case you want to display multiple popovers
-(void) setupPopover:(UIViewController*)popover withSourceView:(UIView*)sourceView sourceRect:(CGRect)sourceRect contentSize:(CGSize)contentSize
{
    NSLog(@"\npopoverPresentationController: %@\n", popover.popoverPresentationController);

    popover.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationPopover;
    popover.popoverPresentationController.delegate = self;
    popover.popoverPresentationController.sourceView                = sourceView;
    popover.popoverPresentationController.sourceRect                = sourceRect;
    popover.preferredContentSize                                    = contentSize;
    popover.popoverPresentationController.permittedArrowDirections  = UIPopoverArrowDirectionDown;
    popover.popoverPresentationController.backgroundColor           = [UIColor whiteColor];
}

For iOS 8 and up the viewWillTransitionToSize:withTransitionCoordinator get's called on the view controller when the device rotates.

I implemented this method in my presenting view controller class as shown below.

// called when rotating a device
- (void)viewWillTransitionToSize:(CGSize)size withTransitionCoordinator:(id<UIViewControllerTransitionCoordinator>)coordinator
{
    NSLog(@"viewWillTransitionToSize [%@]", NSStringFromCGSize(size));

    // resizes popover to new size and arrow location on orientation change
    [coordinator animateAlongsideTransition:^(id<UIViewControllerTransitionCoordinatorContext>  _Nonnull context)
    {
        if (self.popoverVC)
        {
            // get the new frame of our button (this is our new source rect)
            CGRect viewframe = self.activePopoverBtn ? self.activePopoverBtn.frame : CGRectZero;

            // update our popover view controller's sourceRect so the arrow will be pointed in the right place
            self.popoverVC.popoverPresentationController.sourceRect = viewframe;

            // update the preferred content size if we want to adapt the size of the popover to fit the new bounds
            self.popoverVC.preferredContentSize = CGSizeMake(self.view.bounds.size.width -20, self.view.bounds.size.height - 100);
        }

    } completion:^(id<UIViewControllerTransitionCoordinatorContext>  _Nonnull context) {
        // anything you want to do when the transition completes
    }];
}