Swift 3 submit form - UITextField changes only after focusing field again - swift3

Question

I am working on a login view and trying to change the border color of a UITextField in Xcode/swift3 when validation of the textfield fails. The UITextField should get a red border color.
The problem is that if enter an email, then a password and then press the submit button, i have to focus email text field again before it gets a red border.
This is my LoginViewController.swift so far:
import Foundation
import UIKit
class LoginViewController : UIViewController, UITextFieldDelegate {
#IBOutlet weak var userEmailTextField: UITextField!
#IBOutlet weak var userPasswordTextField: UITextField!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
}
// login button action
#IBAction func loginButtonTabbed(_ sender: Any) {
// getting values from text fields
let userEmail = userEmailTextField.text;
let userPassword = userPasswordTextField.text;
// set enpoind data
let requestURL = NSURL(string: Constants.apiUrl)
//creating a task to send the post request
var request = URLRequest(url: requestURL as! URL)
request.httpMethod = "POST"
let postString = "cmd=addUser&email="+userEmail!+"&password="+userPassword!
request.httpBody = postString.data(using: .utf8)
let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: request) { data, response, error in
guard let data = data, error == nil else { // check for fundamental networking error
print("error=\(error)")
return
}
if let httpStatus = response as? HTTPURLResponse, httpStatus.statusCode != 200 { // check for http errors
print("statusCode should be 200, but is \(httpStatus.statusCode)")
print("response = \(response)")
}
do {
let json = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: [])
// store json response to dictionary
if let dictionary = json as? [String: Any] {
// check if we got validation errors
if let nestedDictionary = dictionary["validation"] as? [String: Any] {
// display validation messages on device
if let emailMsg = nestedDictionary["Email"] as? String { // change color of textfield
self.userEmailTextField.errorField()
}
}
}
} catch let error as NSError {
print(error)
}
}
//executing the task
task.resume()
}
}
and the UITextField extension UITextField.swift:
import Foundation
import UIKit
extension UITextField {
func errorField(){
self.layer.borderColor = UIColor(red: 255/255.0, green: 59/255.0, blue: 48/255.0, alpha: 1.0).cgColor
self.layer.borderWidth = 1.0;
}
}

Answer 1

When you're doing a network call, it always happens in the background...so in order to do any kind of UI updates you need to be on the main queue. Just put the self.userEmailTextField.errorField() inside DispatchQueue.main.async {...} so it would be done immediately.
Also haven't really tested your code very well. Why?
Even in your current code the border would still turn red, but it turns red after almost like 6-7 seconds (it could take less or more for you)...because it's being ran from background thread.
What I don't understand is why clicking on the textField again brings the red border right away!? Here's what I'm guessing happens:
From the background thread you update the model ie change the textField color which queues the UI/view to be updated...but since we're on a background queue, that UI updated could take a few seconds to happen
But then you tapped on the textField right away and forced a super quick read of the textField and all its properties which includes the border—from main thread (actual user touches are always handled through main thread)...which even though are not yet red on the screen, but since it's red on the model it will read from it and change color to red immediately.