Showing a alertview with a textbox in iPhone

Question

Is it possible to show an alertview with a textbox inside like the AppStore app. It asks for password in such a dialog. I've seen atleast a couple of other third party apps using it. Is it a private API?

Answer 1

Here's an "Apple Approved" way of doing it from Tharindu Madushana. I got it from his comment in this page: http://iosdevelopertips.com/undocumented/alert-with-textfields.html

// Ask for Username and password.
UIAlertView *alertview = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Twitter Details!" message:@"\n \n \n" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel" otherButtonTitles:@"OK", nil];

// Adds a username Field
UITextField *utextfield = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12.0, 45.0, 260.0, 25.0)]; 
utextfield.placeholder = @"Username";
[utextfield setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]]; 
[alertview addSubview:utextfield];

// Adds a password Field
UITextField *ptextfield = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12.0, 80.0, 260.0, 25.0)]; 
ptextfield.placeholder = @"Password";
[ptextfield setSecureTextEntry:YES];

[ptextfield setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]]; [alertview addSubview:ptextfield];
// Move a little to show up the keyboard
CGAffineTransform transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, 80.0);
[alertview setTransform:transform];

// Show alert on screen.
[alertview show];
[alertview release];

//...
// Don't forget to release these after getting their values
[utextfield release];
[ptextfield release];

And finally to get the text back

-(void)alertView:(UIAlertView *)alertView clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex {
    if (buttonIndex == 0)
        return; //Cancel

    UITextField *field = (UITextField *)[[alertView subviews] lastObject];
    NSLog (@"%@", field.text);
}

Answer 2

Yes, it's undocumented. To add a text field to UIAlertView, use addTextFieldWithValue: label: method. You call with the default text as the first argument and the text that displays in an empty field as the second. Having done that, you can access the field via using textFieldAtIndex:n - see below.

UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: @"Who are you?"     
                       message:@"Give your full name" 
                       delegate:self  cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel"   
                       otherButtonTitles:@"OK", nil]; 
[alert addTextFieldWithValue:@""label:@"Name"]; 

// Customise name field 
UITextField* name = [alert textFieldAtIndex:0]; 
name.clearButtonMode = UITextFieldViewModeWhileEditing; 
name.keyboardType = UIKeyboardTypeAlphabet; 
name.keyboardAppearance = UIKeyboardAppearanceAlert; 
[alert show]; 

The next snippet shows how to retrieve the value in the name field:

NSLog("Name is %@", [[modalView textFieldAtIndex:0] text]);