ios - present UIAlertController on top of everything regardless of the view hierarchy

Question

I'm trying to have an helper class that presents an UIAlertController. Since it's a helper class, I want it to work regardless of the view hierarchy, and with no information about it. I'm able to show the alert, but when it's being dismissed, the app crashed with:

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException',
reason: 'Trying to dismiss UIAlertController <UIAlertController: 0x135d70d80>
 with unknown presenter.'

I'm creating the popup with:

guard let window = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow else { return }
let view = UIView()
view.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
window.insertSubview(view, at: 0)
window.bringSubview(toFront: view)
// add full screen constraints to view ...

let controller = UIAlertController(
  title: "confirm deletion?",
  message: ":)",
  preferredStyle: .alert
)

let deleteAction = UIAlertAction(
  title: "yes",
  style: .destructive,
  handler: { _ in
    DispatchQueue.main.async {
      view.removeFromSuperview()
      completion()
    }
  }
)
controller.addAction(deleteAction)

view.insertSubview(controller.view, at: 0)
view.bringSubview(toFront: controller.view)
// add centering constraints to controller.view ...

When I tap yes, the app will crash and the handler is not being hit before the crash. I can't present the UIAlertController because this would be dependent of the current view hierarchy, while I want the popup to be independant

EDIT: Swift solution Thanks @Vlad for the idea. It seems that operating in a separate window is much more simple. So here is a working Swift solution:

class Popup {
  private var alertWindow: UIWindow
  static var shared = Popup()

  init() {
    alertWindow = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
    alertWindow.rootViewController = UIViewController()
    alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1
    alertWindow.makeKeyAndVisible()
    alertWindow.isHidden = true
  }

  private func show(completion: @escaping ((Bool) -> Void)) {
    let controller = UIAlertController(
      title: "Want to do it?",
      message: "message",
      preferredStyle: .alert
    )

    let yesAction = UIAlertAction(
      title: "Yes",
      style: .default,
      handler: { _ in
        DispatchQueue.main.async {
          self.alertWindow.isHidden = true
          completion(true)
        }
    })

    let noAction = UIAlertAction(
      title: "Not now",
      style: .destructive,
      handler: { _ in
        DispatchQueue.main.async {
          self.alertWindow.isHidden = true
          completion(false)
        }
    })

    controller.addAction(noAction)
    controller.addAction(yesAction)
    self.alertWindow.isHidden = false
    alertWindow.rootViewController?.present(controller, animated: false)
  }
}

Answer 1

Update Dec 16, 2019:

Just present the view controller/alert from the current top-most view controller. That will work :)

if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
     if var topController = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow?.rootViewController  {
           while let presentedViewController = topController.presentedViewController {
                 topController = presentedViewController
                }
     topController.present(self, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Update July 23, 2019:

IMPORTANT

Apparently the method below this technique stopped working in iOS 13.0 :(

I'll update once I find the time to investigate...

Old technique:

Here's a Swift (5) extension for it:

public extension UIAlertController {
    func show() {
        let win = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
        let vc = UIViewController()
        vc.view.backgroundColor = .clear
        win.rootViewController = vc
        win.windowLevel = UIWindow.Level.alert + 1  // Swift 3-4: UIWindowLevelAlert + 1
        win.makeKeyAndVisible()    
        vc.present(self, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Just setup your UIAlertController, and then call:

alert.show()

No more bound by the View Controllers hierarchy!

Answer 2

I will rather present it on UIApplication.shared.keyWindow.rootViewController, instead of using your logic. So you can do next:

UIApplication.shared.keyWindow.rootViewController.presentController(yourAlert, animated: true, completion: nil)

EDITED:

I have an old ObjC category, where I've used the next method show, which I used, if no controller was provided to present from:

- (void)show
{
    self.alertWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame: [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
    self.alertWindow.rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
    self.alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1;
    [self.alertWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
    [self.alertWindow.rootViewController presentViewController: self animated: YES completion: nil];
}

added entire category, if somebody need it

#import "UIAlertController+ShortMessage.h"
#import <objc/runtime.h>

@interface UIAlertController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong) UIWindow* alertWindow;
@end

@implementation UIAlertController (ShortMessage)

- (void)setAlertWindow: (UIWindow*)alertWindow
{
    objc_setAssociatedObject(self, @selector(alertWindow), alertWindow, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC);
}

- (UIWindow*)alertWindow
{
    return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, @selector(alertWindow));
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showShortMessage: (NSString*)message fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: nil shortMessage: message fromController: controller];
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithTitle: (NSString*)title shortMessage: (NSString*)message fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: title shortMessage: message actions: @[[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle: @"Ok" style: UIAlertActionStyleDefault handler: nil]] fromController: controller];
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithTitle: (NSString*)title shortMessage: (NSString*)message actions: (NSArray<UIAlertAction*>*)actions fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    UIAlertController* alert = [UIAlertController alertControllerWithTitle: title
                                                    message: message
                                             preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyleAlert];

    for (UIAlertAction* action in actions)
    {
        [alert addAction: action];
    }

    if (controller)
    {
        [controller presentViewController: alert animated: YES completion: nil];
    }
    else
    {
        [alert show];
    }

    return alert;
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithMessage: (NSString*)message actions: (NSArray<UIAlertAction*>*)actions fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: @"" shortMessage: message actions: actions fromController: controller];
}

- (void)show
{
    self.alertWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame: [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
    self.alertWindow.rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
    self.alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1;
    [self.alertWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
    [self.alertWindow.rootViewController presentViewController: self animated: YES completion: nil];
}

@end

Answer 3

Old approach with adding show() method and local instance of UIWindow no longer works on iOS 13 (window is dismissed right away).

Here is UIAlertController Swift extension which should work on iOS 13:

import UIKit

private var associationKey: UInt8 = 0

extension UIAlertController {

    private var alertWindow: UIWindow! {
        get {
            return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, &associationKey) as? UIWindow
        }

        set(newValue) {
            objc_setAssociatedObject(self, &associationKey, newValue, objc_AssociationPolicy.OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN)
        }
    }

    func show() {
        self.alertWindow = UIWindow.init(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
        self.alertWindow.backgroundColor = .red

        let viewController = UIViewController()
        viewController.view.backgroundColor = .green
        self.alertWindow.rootViewController = viewController

        let topWindow = UIApplication.shared.windows.last
        if let topWindow = topWindow {
            self.alertWindow.windowLevel = topWindow.windowLevel + 1
        }

        self.alertWindow.makeKeyAndVisible()
        self.alertWindow.rootViewController?.present(self, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    override open func viewDidDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewDidDisappear(animated)

        self.alertWindow.isHidden = true
        self.alertWindow = nil
    }
}

Such UIAlertController then can be created and shown like this:

let alertController = UIAlertController(title: "Title", message: "Message", preferredStyle: .alert)
let alertAction = UIAlertAction(title: "Title", style: .default) { (action) in
    print("Action")
}

alertController.addAction(alertAction)
alertController.show()