How to add scopes to a UISearchController

Paul Hudson    October 26th 2018    @twostraws

By default a UISearchController provides just a text input field, but with a few small changes you can make it add scopes buttons underneath to let the user control how their search happens.

First, make your view controller conform to UISearchBarDelegate as well as UISearchResultsUpdating.

You need to add two new lines where you create your search controller: one to add the scope button titles you want to use, and one to tell the search bar to report changes back to the view controller:

search.searchBar.scopeButtonTitles = ["Friends", "Everyone"]
search.searchBar.delegate = self

Finally, implement the selectedScopeButtonIndexDidChange method so you get notified when the user tapped a scope button:

func searchBar(_ searchBar: UISearchBar, selectedScopeButtonIndexDidChange selectedScope: Int) {
    print("New scope index is now \(selectedScope)")
}

You can read the selected index at any time by using the searchController.searchBar.selectedScopeButtonIndex property.

Available from iOS 8.0

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