UIMenuController doesn't update menu for first time

Question

I have UITextView on which I want to add highlight as custom menu item. I have registered to following notification UIMenuControllerWillShowMenuNotification.

The method for the notification is something like this:

if textIsHighlighted {
    let highlightMenuItem = UIMenuItem(title: "Highlight", action: Selector("highlightText"))
    UIMenuController.sharedMenuController().menuItems = [highlightMenuItem]
}
else {
    let highlightMenuItem = UIMenuItem(title: "Dehighlight", action: Selector("highlightText"))
    UIMenuController.sharedMenuController().menuItems = [highlightMenuItem]
}

Although the first time the menucontroller fails to update even though it executes the part of code. It shows the last value. Where should I write this part of code as I feel that during willShow menuController it's already created and thus fails to update.

You need to call update method. – AnupamChugh Aug 10 '18 at 08:01 — AnupamChugh, Aug 10 '18 at 08:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 07 '16 at 03:26

Hopefully you've solved this by now, but I've just figured this one out myself: Other answers have said you can update the menu items by adding it when the UIMenuControllerWillShowMenuNotification is called, but this wasn't working for me (iOS 9, Swift 2).

Instead I implemented the UITextView delegate method: textViewDidChangeSelection and set the relevant menu items there:

func textViewDidChangeSelection(textView: UITextView) {
    if self.currentSelectionIsInHighlightedRange() {
        self.setUpUnhighlightMenuItem()
    } else {
        self.setUpHighlightMenuItem()
    }
}

private func currentSelectionIsInHighlightedRange() -> Bool {
    let allHighlightedRanges = self.document.highlightedRanges()

    let selectedTextRange = self.documentView.textView.selectedRange

    for range in allHighlightedRanges {
        let intersectionRange = NSIntersectionRange(range, selectedTextRange)
        if intersectionRange.length > 0 {
            return true
        }
    }
    return false
}

thanks. This issue is too old so I don't remember the problem now but hope your solution is right I'm accepting it. — meteors, Jun 07 '16 at 16:33
I encountered the exact same problem where my UIMenuItems are not updated immediately. Even calling .update() does not address this. But the intuition here solves my issue, which is to add the menu items before it needs to be used. — yaozhang, Oct 13 '22 at 00:36

UIMenuController doesn't update menu for first time

1 Answers1