Add TextField or other control to UIActionSheet or UIAlertView

In response to the earlier post about adding a UIPickerView, here's an example of a UIActionSheet with a picker based on the UITextView example above. The heavy lifting was already done; I just removed unneeded code and hooked in to the UIActionSheet constructor. As usual, the UIPickerView needs a delegate and data source, so I have added the picker as a property to the subclass for easy setting.

PickerActionSheet.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface PickerActionSheet : UIActionSheet {
 UIPickerView *picker;
 BOOL layoutDone;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) UIPickerView *picker;
@end

PickerActionSheet.m

#import "PickerActionSheet.h"
@implementation PickerActionSheet
@synthesize picker;
- (id)initWithTitle:(NSString *)title delegate:(id < UIActionSheetDelegate >)delegate
 cancelButtonTitle:(NSString *)cancelButtonTitle
 destructiveButtonTitle:(NSString *)destructiveButtonTitle
 otherButtonTitles:(NSString *)otherButtonTitles, ... {
 self = [super initWithTitle:title delegate:delegate cancelButtonTitle:cancelButtonTitle 
 destructiveButtonTitle:destructiveButtonTitle otherButtonTitles:otherButtonTitles];
 if (self) {
 UIPickerView *p = [[UIPickerView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];
 [self addSubview:p];
 self.picker = p;
 [p release];
 }
 return self;
}
- (void)dealloc {
 [super dealloc];
}
/*
 * Determine maximum y-coordinate of UILabel objects. This method assumes that only
 * following objects are contained in subview list:
 * - UILabel
 * - UITextField
 * - UIThreePartButton (Private Class)
 */
- (CGFloat) maxLabelYCoordinate {
 // Determine maximum y-coordinate of labels
 CGFloat maxY = 0;
 for( UIView *view in self.subviews ){
 if([view isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
 CGRect viewFrame = [view frame];
 CGFloat lowerY = viewFrame.origin.y + viewFrame.size.height;
 if(lowerY > maxY)
 maxY = lowerY;
 }
 }
 return maxY;
}
- (void)layoutSubviews {
 [super layoutSubviews];
 if(!layoutDone) {
 CGRect frame = [self frame];
 CGFloat alertWidth = frame.size.width;
 CGFloat pickerHeight = self.picker.frame.size.height;
 CGFloat labelMaxY = [self maxLabelYCoordinate];
 
 // Insert UIPickerView below labels and move other fields down accordingly
 for(UIView *view in self.subviews){
 if([view isKindOfClass:[UIPickerView class]]){
 CGRect viewFrame = CGRectMake(0, labelMaxY, alertWidth, pickerHeight);
 [view setFrame:viewFrame];
 } else if(![view isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
 CGRect viewFrame = [view frame];
 viewFrame.origin.y += pickerHeight;
 [view setFrame:viewFrame];
 }
 }
 
 // size UIAlertView frame by height of UIPickerView
 frame.size.height += pickerHeight + 2.0;
 frame.origin.y -= pickerHeight + 2.0;
 [self setFrame:frame];
 layoutDone = YES;
 }
}
@end

usage:

- (IBAction)showPicker:(id)sender {
 PickerActionSheet * sheet = [[PickerActionSheet alloc] initWithTitle:@"Pick Something"
 delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel" destructiveButtonTitle:nil otherButtonTitles:nil];
 sheet.picker.delegate = self;
 sheet.picker.dataSource = self;
 [sheet showInView:self.view];
 [sheet release];
}

Thanks to cheinelt for the bulk of this code!

p.

Message was edited by: pegli

That method is not publicly documented though. I'm leery of using anything not documented, as it could change. This may be fine for my own projects, but I don't want to go back and have to fix stuff I did for clients.

Those methods are undocumented though right? I think I'll just follow the long code above.

Thanks a lot for sharing this code! Will test it out 🙂

Hi,

Everytime I try to use this code of yours, my app crashes. The problem occurs when the application returns from reading what was typed, I mean, when the user presses ok on the alert window.

Any idea of what may be causing this?

I have even found another code based on yours here
http://code.google.com/p/itextuploader/source/browse/trunk/TextAlertView.m?spec= svn38&r=38

this code has a last method yours don't have.

Both codes show the same problem - application crashes right after the user types and presses OK.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Message was edited by: Magno Urbano*

-

Magno,

I was having the same problem. The solution is as follows - the object you designate as the delegate has to remain in existence. When I realized I was autoreleasing the object, and stopped, the problem went away. Make sure (explicitly if necessary) that the object you designate as a delegate does not get released until after the alert is finished with everything that it is supposed to do and (hopefully) that will fix your issues.

Object persistence, the bane of my existence.

Thanks for the code above. I have a problem though..how do you prevent the TextAlertView from disappearing if you press the OK button with no text in the textField.

Thanks again.

How do you prevent the alertView from being dismissed if you press the ok button with no value?

After you clicked on the row to select a value, how do you remove the PickerActionSheet and get the chosen value? I use this popup when clicking on a UITextField (unfortunately the keyboard appears, and that's another problem).