How to Show UIPickerView when selecting UITextField

Question

Here is a screenshot of what I did till now:

So what I am trying to do is when you select "pick a name" Textfield I need a Picker to show up, with the input @"Jack".

Answer 1

Since iOS 3.2, UITextField supports the inputView property to assign a custom view to be used as a keyboard, which provides a way to display a UIPickerView:

You could use the inputView property of the UITextField, probably combined with the inputAccessoryView property. You assign your pickerView to the inputView property, and, to dismiss the picker, a done button to the inputAccessoryView property.

UIPickerView *myPickerView = [[UIPickerView alloc] init];
//myPickerView configuration here...
myTextField.inputView = myPickerView;

Like that. This will not give you a direct way to dismiss the view since your UIPickerView has no return button, which is why I recommend to use the inputAccessoryView property to display a toolbar with a done button (the bar is just for aesthetics, you might as well just use a UIButton object):

UIToolbar *myToolbar = [[UIToolbar alloc] initWithFrame:
 CGRectMake(0,0, 320, 44)]; //should code with variables to support view resizing
UIBarButtonItem *doneButton =
 [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemDone
 target:self action:@selector(inputAccessoryViewDidFinish)];
 //using default text field delegate method here, here you could call
 //myTextField.resignFirstResponder to dismiss the views
[myToolbar setItems:[NSArray arrayWithObject: doneButton] animated:NO];
myTextField.inputAccessoryView = myToolbar;

Answer 2

I use this and find this a lot cleaner than adding a subview and animating the UIPicker

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField {
responder = textField;

    if ([textField isEqual:self.txtBirthday]) {
    UIDatePicker *datepicker = [[UIDatePicker alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];
    [datepicker setDatePickerMode:UIDatePickerModeDate];

    textField.inputView = datepicker;
    }

    return YES;
}