Dismissing the Keyboard on Tap

Overview

When a user is entering data into TextFields, the keyboard can obscure other parts of the UI. A great user experience enhancement is to dismiss the keyboard when the user taps on a non-interactive part of the screen.

This can be easily achieved using a UITapGestureRecognizer. You can add a gesture recognizer to your main view and use an @objc function to close the keyboard.

Reference:

• Complete iOS Development Series 1-13

Implementation

The implementation is straightforward and can be done in just two steps within your UIViewController.

Step 1: Add a Tap Gesture Recognizer

In your viewDidLoad() method, create an instance of UITapGestureRecognizer and add it to the view. The recognizer is initialized with a target (self) and an action (a selector for the function to be called).

// In your UIViewController

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    
    // 1. Create a gesture recognizer
    let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(hideKeyboard))
    
    // 2. Add it to the view
    view.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)
}

Step 2: Create the @objc Function

Next, create the function that will be called when the tap gesture is recognized. This function needs the @objc attribute because it's being called by the Objective-C runtime through the selector.

Inside this function, you simply call view.endEditing(true). This method resigns the first responder status for any view that has it, which in the case of a TextField causes the keyboard to be dismissed.

// In your UIViewController

@objc func hideKeyboard() {
    view.endEditing(true)
}

That's it! With these two small pieces of code, you have implemented a much more intuitive user experience for text input in your app.