Touch and drag a UIButton around, but don't trigger it when releasing the finger

Question

I\'m trying to allow some UIButton instances on one of my views to be touched and dragged around the screen (eventually with momentum, but that\'s for later!). I ha

Answer 1

For beginners like me, I tried UIPanGestureRecognizer as suggested above, but it did not work. So, here is my simple solution: First, add event listeners as suggested by Baig:

// add drag listener
[button addTarget:self action:@selector(wasDragged:withEvent:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDragInside];
// add tap listener
[button addTarget:self action:@selector(wasTapped:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

Both drag and tap will both trigger UIControlEventTouchUpInside, so add a flag in wasDragged:withEvent: like this:

-(IBAction)wasDragged: (id)sender withEvent: (UIEvent *) event {
    was_dragged = YES;
    UIButton *selected = (UIButton *)sender;
    selected.center = [[[event allTouches] anyObject] locationInView:self.view];
}

- (IBAction)buttonWasTapped:(id)sender {
    if(!was_dragged)
        NSLog(@"button tapped");
    else{
        was_dragged = NO;
        NSLog(@"button dragged");
    }
}

Voila. Done.