UISearchController in a UIViewController

Question

I'm looking to create similar functionality to Apple's maps application in Swift. Is there anyway to integrate a UISearchController in to a regular view (i.e.: not a UITableView). Dropping one in through Storyboard results in a crash after clicking inside the connected searchbar. Or is there some way I can achieve this outcome with a UITableView?

Answer 1

If you want to use UISearchController with a non UITableView, here is how I did it.

Since the UISearchController is not (yet!) supported by IB, you do not need to add anything in it, like a UISearchBar.

@interface UIViewControllerSubclass () <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource, UISearchBarDelegate, UISearchControllerDelegate, UISearchResultsUpdating>

@property (strong, nonatomic) UISearchController *searchController;

@end

@implementation UIViewControllerSubclass

- (void)viewDidLoad
{        
    [super viewDidLoad];
    // Do any custom init from here...

    // Create a UITableViewController to present search results since the actual view controller is not a subclass of UITableViewController in this case
    UITableViewController *searchResultsController = [[UITableViewController alloc] init];

    // Init UISearchController with the search results controller
    self.searchController = [[UISearchController alloc] initWithSearchResultsController:searchResultsController];

    // Link the search controller
    self.searchController.searchResultsUpdater = self;

    // This is obviously needed because the search bar will be contained in the navigation bar
    self.searchController.hidesNavigationBarDuringPresentation = NO;

    // Required (?) to set place a search bar in a navigation bar
    self.searchController.searchBar.searchBarStyle = UISearchBarStyleMinimal;

    // This is where you set the search bar in the navigation bar, instead of using table view's header ...
    self.navigationItem.titleView = self.searchController.searchBar;

    // To ensure search results controller is presented in the current view controller
    self.definesPresentationContext = YES;

    // Setting delegates and other stuff
    searchResultsController.tableView.dataSource = self;
    searchResultsController.tableView.delegate = self;
    self.searchController.delegate = self;
    self.searchController.dimsBackgroundDuringPresentation = NO;
    self.searchController.searchBar.delegate = self;        
}

@end

I hope it is enough to work :-)

Then of course you need at least to implement UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource, UISearchResultsUpdater methods.

Enjoy!