This will be a simple tutorial showing you how to put a UITextField in a UIAlertView. This is simple and just a couple lines if code. You will learn CGAffineTransform and coding UITextField programmatically.
Heres a screenshots of what we should get.
So lets go ahead and get started…
1. Create A New View Based Application
You can name it whatever you want, I am gonna name it TextFieldInAlert.
2. Implementing The Code
Jump in the viewcontroller.m or if you called it TextFieldInAlert then TextFieldInAlert.m Now find the -(void)viewDidLoad method. Uncomment it and put this code in there.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@”Enter Name Here” message:@”this gets covered!”
delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@”Dismiss” otherButtonTitles:@”OK!”, nil];
UITextField *myTextField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12, 45, 260, 25)];
[myTextField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[alert addSubview:myTextField];
[alert show];
[alert release];
[myTextField release];
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}
So we are basically calling a UIAlertView and then we are adding the UITextField programmatically. You might have noticed in the message part of the UIAlertView we put “this gets covered!”, if we didn’t put that sentence then the alerts buttons would go up more and the UITextField will be messed. You can try taking that line out and see what happens. Now Build and Run the app. Now you got the UITextField to be inside the UIAlertView. Now try tapping the UITextField. Uh oh, why is the Keyboard covering the UIAlertView? Well there is just a simple fix to this. We just add two more lines of code and it will fix that. Add this to your code
CGAffineTransform myTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0, 60);
[alert setTransform:myTransform];
So now your full code should be looking like this.
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@”Enter Name Here” message:@”this gets covered!” delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@”Dismiss” otherButtonTitles:@”OK!”, nil];
UITextField *myTextField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12, 45, 260, 25)];
CGAffineTransform myTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0, 60);
[alert setTransform:myTransform];
[myTextField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[alert addSubview:myTextField];
[alert show];
[alert release];
[myTextField release];
Now if you Build and Run, you will notice the UITextField is a little higher and when you tap the UITextField the Keyboard doesn’t cover it up anymore. That is what the CGAffineTransform was for. So that is basically it! There is a video tutorial also available and if you like video tutorial more then written ones you can check it out out by clicking HERE. You can download the source code below. Happy iCoding!
30 Comments
Great post dude.. I really expect more tutorials like this!
Hey, a really useful post!
Do you think this is in-keeping with Apple’s UI guidelines? I’ve done this for a while in an App, but I recently decided to switch to a modal view because I wasn’t convinced I was doing the right thing. The other reason I switched was that it takes ages for the UI to appear on a non-3gs phone.
No. There is a lot of people that used this in there applications and it was fine with Apple and also it didn’t slow down there app at all. It might be something your doing in your code.
Hello, I create my own UIAlertView subclass. My class can autoresize to any view.
http://fryconstantine.habrahabr.ru/blog/74627/
How Can I post my topic in english on this blog?
Hi there,
This is great. Thanks you.
Could you post a little code to show how to access the value of the text box, say, in a
- (void)alertView:(UIAlertView *)alertView clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex {
method.
Thanks.
Great stuff. Thanks.
Yeah maybe… I think it was because I was forcing the keyboard to appear at the same time.
Rather than adding an extraneous message line, wouldn’t it be better (as long as you’re customizing your UIAlertView) to simply make a custom UIAlertView and override the default setFrame method? This would then allow you to manage the UIAlertView far more easily.
You also have a memory leak from not releasing the UITextField.
try this alert view http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1378133/SmartAlertView.zip/ this alert view can autoresize to any view. you can dispay UITextField, UITableView, UIImageView an etc. Example:
UIView *myView = [[UIView alloc] initWithCenter:CGPointMake(0,0)];
SmartAlertView *smartAlertView = [[SmartAlertView alloc] initWithView:myView andTitle:@”JustForFun”
withTarget:nil andAction:@selector(doSomething:)];
[smartAlertView show];
[smartAlertView release];
[poof release];
screencast: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1378133/SmartAlertView.mov
mayby with animation?
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@”Enter Name Here” message:@”this gets covered!” delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@”Dismiss” otherButtonTitles:@”OK!”, nil];
UITextField *myTextField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12, 45, 260, 25)];
myTextField.delegate = self;
[myTextField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[alert addSubview:myTextField];
[alert show];
[alert release];
}
- (void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField{
[UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL];
[UIView setAnimationDuration:0.3];
CGAffineTransform myTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0, -60);
[alert setTransform:myTransform];
[UIView commitAnimations];
}
Can I assume that this method would work with two UITextFields, like if I was implementing a UserName & Password AlertView?
did you find out how to do this? im making a tic tac toe game and im trying to allow it to say “its (names) turn” below the game. currently i have it saying “its x’s turn” or “its y’x turn” so it would be cool if i could get it to display the players names
, this would also help while playing over bluetooth or wifi 
thanks
Great post – thanks.
Just one question how do you get the value from the text field?
I have tried adding textFieldDidEndEditing, but i never get in the method.
I do have ever jump to my -(void)allertView: etc method but can’t then get to my text box value.
Your help would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
Don’t worry I sorted it… just declared the UITextField *myTextField; in the header file and not the alert method code.
Then used myTextField.text in the alertView method…
Easy, just needed to use my brain!
Hello Matt,
can you please explain how you got the myTextField variable to work. I can not use the entered data.
Thanks
Had a little trouble at first but finally sorted it – many thanks
Great tutorial nice and simple and right to the point.
I ran into an issue with this though. If you add a button on the view that brings up the alert with text field you can hold down inside the text field and let go and the ‘paste’ option appears as usual.
But after the first time if you bring up the alert a second time (and every time thereafter) the paste option no longer works! The little magnifying glass still pops up but when it goes away, there is no paste option!
Anyone have any idea why this might be?
Great tutorial!
Can someone help me? I want to use this tutorial to make an option to rename items in my uitableview.
Thank you
Great Tutorial! I was wondering if there is a way to have something displayed after you hit the “OK!” button. Any help would be great. Thanks
I also would like to know what Jeremiah asked.
Thanks in advance
Echt ein informativer Blog, werde sicherlich noch
Be aware that though this code may have made it onto the store in the past Apple are being much more strict these days. I recently had an app refused for one reason only and that was because I used this code to put a UITextField in a UIAlertView. Once I stopped using this the app got in the store fine
I’m loving these blogs, keep em coming! ciao!
This tutorial really helped me, thanks!
For anyone looking to use a bigger text area, instead of UITextField, use UITextView. You have to do a bit of magic to get the alert view’s buttons to look right, but it’s easy. In the alert view’s init call:
[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@”Create Message:\n\n\n\n\n” …
This will put linebreaks in the title, pushing everything else down, including the message (so it won’t be hidden anymore).
This is awesome!
Your post has been very helpful many thanks!
I’m having trouble with this. I am running a view based game and when this alert pops up strange things happen. It displays nicely and then shrinks a bit, it then grows a bit, and then shrinks a bit etc. It also does not allow input, no keyboard comes up and the game locks.
Because it is a game I have the NSTimer set to cycle 60 times per second – does that cause my problem or is it because I do not have a ViewDidLoad method? – I have placed the code where I have a finished splash screen.
Thanks
Thank You. Very helpful.
Nice article ..
By the help of this Fourm I Improved a lot
thanks
safil sunny
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