Prevent editing of text in UITextField and hide cursor/caret/magnifying glass while using an inputView

Question

How do I prevent the editing of text in a UITextField along with hiding the cursor/caret/magnifying glass, but still present the keyboard, as I am using an inputView with a UIPickerView/UIDatePickerView?

Setting userInteractionEnabled to NO does not work, because it no longer receives any touches and will not present the keyboard.

Answer 1

Subclass UITextField

//Disables caret
- (CGRect)caretRectForPosition:(UITextPosition *)position
{
    return CGRectZero;
}

//Disables magnifying glass
-(void)addGestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
    if ([gestureRecognizer isKindOfClass:[UILongPressGestureRecognizer class]])
    {
        gestureRecognizer.enabled = NO;
    }
    [super addGestureRecognizer:gestureRecognizer];
}

In your UITextFieldDelegate

//Prevent text from being copied and pasted or edited with bluetooth keyboard.
- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string {
    return NO;
}

Now just set your text programmatically from the result of your UIPickerView/UIDatePicker.

Answer 2

Hiding the cursor is a lot simpler in iOS 7. Still need some trickery to disable the loupe

textField.tintColor = [UIColor clearColor];