Present a popover from an arbitrary anchor point in Swift

Question

I know how to present a popover from a bar button item as is described in this answer (for both iPhone and iPad).

I would like to add a popover for an arbitrary anchor point. The other SO answers that I saw were for bar button items or in Objective-C.

I just learned how to do this, so I am adding my own answer below.

Answer 1

Updated for Swift 3

In the storyboard, add a view controller that you would like to be the popover. Set the Storyboard ID to be "popoverId".

Also add a button to your main view controller and hook up the IBAction to the following code.

import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate {

    @IBAction func buttonTap(sender: UIButton) {

        // get a reference to the view controller for the popover
        let popController = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil).instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "popoverId")

        // set the presentation style
        popController.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationStyle.popover

        // set up the popover presentation controller
        popController.popoverPresentationController?.permittedArrowDirections = UIPopoverArrowDirection.up
        popController.popoverPresentationController?.delegate = self
        popController.popoverPresentationController?.sourceView = sender // button
        popController.popoverPresentationController?.sourceRect = sender.bounds

        // present the popover
        self.present(popController, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    // UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate method
    func adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController(controller: UIPresentationController) -> UIModalPresentationStyle {
        // Force popover style
        return UIModalPresentationStyle.none
    }
}

Setting the sourceView and sourceRect is what allows you to choose an arbitrary point to display the popover.

That's it. Now it should like something like this when the button is tapped.

Thanks to this article for help.