Making Message-like UI on iPhone (without sending SMS/email)

Question

I am developing a chat app which sends emssages through push notifications and p2p connections (not via SMS or e-mail).

I would like to make a view controller which has some custom views at the top and then the messages thread below it. The messages should be presented in a manner similar to Messages iPhone app.

Is it possible to reuse Apple code (is there a ViewController / View I can use? Can I somehow use MFMessageComposeViewController?) or should I reinvent the wheel and make my own implementation?

Answer 1

There are several open-source solutions that re-create the messages interface rather accurately:

• SSMessagesViewController by Sam Soffes
• MessagesTableViewController by jessesquires

Of course, you could also create the interface yourself by using a UITableView to house custom cells that would draw the speech bubbles, and text inside them.