Designing iOS SearchBar

Question

I want to have a simple SearchBar in ObjectiveC. Using UISearchBar or UISearchBarDelegate is confusing me. I could have used a UITextField

Answer 1

Just make your view controller implement the UISearchBarDelegate. In your xib file, all you need to do is to add a UISearchBar to your view and configure it as necessary, create an outlet for it (optional really but helps to be explicit), and assign the delegate outlet to your view controller.

Then, to respond to the search bar events, implement the UISearchBarDelegate protocol methods as necessary. For example:

- (void)searchBarSearchButtonClicked:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
    [self handleSearch:searchBar];
}

- (void)searchBarTextDidEndEditing:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
    [self handleSearch:searchBar];
}

- (void)handleSearch:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
    NSLog(@"User searched for %@", searchBar.text);
    [searchBar resignFirstResponder]; // if you want the keyboard to go away
}

- (void)searchBarCancelButtonClicked:(UISearchBar *) searchBar {
    NSLog(@"User canceled search");
    [searchBar resignFirstResponder]; // if you want the keyboard to go away
}