Disable UISearchBar search icon and placeholder text animation on becomeFirstResponder

Question

I have a UISearchBar that I want to display when the user taps a button. In the buttonPress method, I create the searchBar and add it as a subview, then call [searchBar becomeFirstResponder]. If I take out this becomeFirstResponder call, the search icon and placeholder text appear in the center of the textField.

Then, when the search bar becomes first responder, both animate to be left-aligned.

Because I'm doing both actions successively, I'm getting a weird animation where the icon & placeholder animate from (0,0).

How can I disable this animation, so that I can simply add the second image to my view?

EDIT:

I got the placeholder text to display correctly by using

- (void)searchBarTextDidBeginEditing:(UISearchBar *)searchBar
{
    [searchBar setPlaceholder:@"Type Here to Search"];
}

I can move the search icon using [searchBar setPositionAdjustment:UIOffsetMake(x, y) forSearchBarIcon:UISearchBarIconSearch];, but the changes are still applied within the animation.

Lecce

Answer 1

@user3429963 is definitely looking in the right direction. Here's what worked for me:

searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
searchBar.removeLayerAnimationsRecursively()

where removeLayerAnimationsRecursively() is a function which removes animations from the view layer and its subviews' layers recursively:

extension UIView {

  func removeLayerAnimationsRecursively() {
    layer.removeAllAnimations()
    subviews.forEach { $0.removeLayerAnimationsRecursively() }
  }
}

Sharanshard

Answer 2

It's a hack but if you can't live without it.

EDIT: If you want the placeholder text too, you can do this.

set the placeholder text to @" " initially, and

[self.searchBar setText:@"Place holder"];

[self.searchBar setPlaceholder:@"Place holder"];

[[UITextField appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UISearchBar class], nil] setTextColor:[UIColor grayColor]];

and after it becomes first Responder,

[self.searchBar setText:@""];

Hatley

why are you setting the place holder text, use the text – Hatley

I need the placeholder text so when the user starts typing, it goes away and is replaced with the typed character. For the search icon, I can animate it to a specified position using [setPositionAdjustment:forSearchBarIcon] but it still does so using an animation. – Lecce

placeholder text will be center aligned. I don't think you can change that – Hatley

No, the placeholder text is center aligned when the textField is inactive, then animates to left-aligned when it becomes firstResponder, then when the user presses a key, it disappears. It then reappears when the textField is empty. – Lecce

Answer 3

Certain number of spaces at the end of placeholder solved for me the issue. Note, it should be accurate number of spaces - not less and not more.

Utopia

Answer 4

Use this code to hide icon of search bar :-

[searchBar setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"searchIcon.jpg"] forSearchBarIcon:UISearchBarIconSearch state:UIControlStateNormal];

Take transparent image with searchIcon.jpg name and your icon hide its work for me

[searchBar setText:@""];

Encephaloma

Answer 5

override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated)
    UIView.setAnimationsEnabled(false)
    self.searchController?.isActive = true
    self.searchController?.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
}

func didPresentSearchController(_ searchController: UISearchController) {
    searchController.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
    UIView.setAnimationsEnabled(true)
}

Dacoity

Answer 6

it works for me (testing only on ios7)

@interface SearchBar : UISearchBar
@end

@implementation SearchBar
- (void)layoutSubviews
{
    [super layoutSubviews];

    UITextField *textField = (UITextField *)[self firstSubviewOfClass:[UITextField class]];
    UIImageView *imageView = (UIImageView *)[textField firstSubviewMatchingBlock:^BOOL(UIView *obj) {
        return [obj isKindOfClass:[UIImageView class]] && obj.layer.animationKeys.count;
    }];
    [imageView.layer removeAllAnimations];
    UILabel *label = (UILabel *)[self firstSubviewOfClass:[UILabel class]];
    [label.layer removeAllAnimations];
}
@end

Antechamber