How to Handle Events When the User Taps a MKMapView

For a iPhone application I am writing on my spare time, I have added a MKMapView which displays a small map with a fixed coordinate.
The MKMapView does not allow user interaction, it is for information purpose only, to give some geolocation context. However, I want the user to be able to tap the map view to open it full screen and interact with it (zoom, scroll or open it in Maps). The idea is very similar to geolocated tweet in Twitter for iPhone.

The issue I encountered is that MKMapView captures user events and there is no way to retrieve them (subclassing MKMapView is discouraged). I searched for a solution on internet to know when the user taps the MKMapView but none of the solution were simple enough (or elegant enough) to my liking.

I ended up solving it using a UIView and a block.

The basis of the solution is to add a UIView on top of the MKMapView to handle the touchesBegan:withEvent: method when the user taps on the map view (or so he thinks...).
When this UIView's touchesBegan:withEvent: method is called, we call a block passed by my main UIViewController. This allows to keep all the logic inside the main view controller.

This solutions requires few lines of code and no changes to the NIB file.

In the NIB file, I just placed a MKMapView (with zoom and scroll disabled) that is connected to its controller through an IBOutlet.
I added a mapTouchView which is not an IBOutlet, it will be created and configured directly from the code.

// MyController.h    

#import <MapKit/MapKit.h>    

@interface MyController : UIViewController {
    IBOutlet MKMapView *mapView;
    UIView* mapTouchView
}    

@end

In the implementation file, I create an instance of a MapTouchView in the initialization method:

// MyController.m    

#import "MapTouchView.h"    

@implementation MyController

- (void)displayFullMap {
    NSLog(@"user has tapped the map");
    ...
}    

- (id)init {
    ...
    mapTouchView = [[MapTouchView alloc] initWithBlockForTouchesBegan:^(NSSet *touches, UIEvent *event) {
       [self displayFullMap];
    }];    

    return self;
}

The MapTouchView's initialization method takes a block that will be called when its touchesBegan:withEvent: method is called.
In this case, when that happens, MyController will call its own displayFullMap method.

In MyController's viewDidLoad, we make sure to insert the mapTouchView above the mapView:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    ...
    [self.view insertSubview:mapTouchView aboveSubview:mapView];
}

And when the view will appear, we update the mapTouchView's frame with the mapView's frame:

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];
    ...
    mapTouchView.frame = mapView.frame;
}

With these few lines, we have displayed an invisible UIView on top of the MKMapView. To verify this, you can change the background color of mapTouchView in viewDidLoad:

mapTouchView.backgroundColor = [UIColor orangeColor];

Instead of the map, an orange box will be displayed.

It is important to note that no event will be passed to MKMapView but that was acceptable as I have disabled user interactions on it anyway.

The MapTouchView class is deceptively simple:

// MapTouchView.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>    

@interface MapTouchView : UIView {
   void (^block)(NSSet *, UIEvent *);
}    

- (id)initWithBlockForTouchesBegan:(void (^)(NSSet *, UIEvent *))aBlock;    

@end

We keep a block attribute which is set in the initialization method and will be called when the user touches the view. The implementation is straightforward too:

// MapTouchView.m    

#import "MapTouchView.h"    

@implementation MapTouchView    

- (id)initWithBlockForTouchesBegan:(void (^)(NSSet *, UIEvent *))aBlock {
    if (self = [super init]) {
        block = [aBlock copy];
    }
    return self;
}    

- (void)dealloc {
    [block release];
    [super dealloc];
}    

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
   block(touches, event);
}    

@end

When the initialization method is called, we copy the block passed in argument.
When the touchesBegan:withEvent: method is called, we call the block passing the method's arguments.

In my controller's case, I don't need any of these arguments but I preferred to have the block's argument match the event method arguments so that this MapTouchView can be reused in other contexts which requires them (to know the tap count for example).

This solution is simple (and reusable), all the logic remains in MyController and MapTouchView does not contain any code specific to my application. It would be possible to make MapTouchView even more generic (e.g. have the block return a BOOL to determine if the event must be passed to the map view, implement other event methods, etc.) but it solves my problem as it is.

It was also the opportunity to use blocks in iOS and it is a great new tool that I have added to my toolbox to write simpler, more elegant code.