When assigning focus via becomeFirstResponder to UISearchController's UISearchBar, the keyboard does not appear

Question

I\'ve spent quite a bit of time searching online and talking to other developers about this issue to no avail. The exact issue is described in this SO post (Focus on the UIS

Answer 1

Your code looks ok. What you are describing isn't normal behaviour. The first thing you can do is to create a new project with just the UISearchController functionality and see how it goes. You can edit your question with it so we'll have a better view.

There's a good example on how to implement UISearchController here: Sample-UISearchController

Adding:

-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    [self.searchController.searchBar becomeFirstResponder];
}

to MasterViewController_TableResults.m gave the expected results and the keyboard popped up on launch on an iPad & iPhone with iOS 8.3.

You can go over that project and see what you did differently,

Edit:

Apparently if [self.searchController setActive:YES] is called before becomeFirstResponder the keyboard won't show. I wonder if that's a bug or not.

Answer 2

Swift 3.0 (iOS 10) working solution:

    override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewDidAppear(animated)
        searchController.isActive = true
        DispatchQueue.main.async { [unowned self] in
            self.searchController.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
        }
    }

Answer 3

On iOS 9 I've found its sufficient to delay becomeFirstResponder() to the next run loop:

func focusSearchField() {
    searchController?.active = true

    // skipping to the next run loop is required, otherwise the keyboard does not appear
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), { [weak self] in
        self?.searchController?.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
    })
}

Answer 4

-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    [self.searchController setActive:YES];
}

//and then in the delegate method:

- (void)didPresentSearchController:(UISearchController *)searchController
{
  dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
  [searchController.searchBar becomeFirstResponder];
  });
}

//The above works for me in addition to this I had to add:
-(void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [searchController setActive:NO];
}

Answer 5

Had the same annoying issue. You would think that by setting the SearchController as active would both present the the search controller and the keyboard. Unfortunately, it only does the first part.

My solution

• in viewDidAppear make the Search Controller active:

  override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated)
    resultSearchController.active = true 
  }
  

• once it is active, in didPresentSearchController make as first responder

  func didPresentSearchController(searchController: UISearchController) {
    searchController.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder() 
  }
  

Answer 6

The solution that will work is as follows :

1.Override ViewDidLayoutSubviews in the view controller in which you are showing UISearchController

2.Override ViewDidLayoutSubviews and inside it make search bar first responder.

Tested it on iOS > 9.0

Caution : Put a null check before making it First responder as follows

if((searchController != null)&&(searchController.SearchBar != null))
            searchController.SearchBar.BecomeFirstResponder();

This is because ViewDidLayoutSubviews also gets called when cancel button is pressed.

This worked for me in Xamarin.