Gray out view in iphone, how?

Question

I wonder what is the way to gray out portion of a view similar to the way UIAlertView grays out everything except the message box? Right now i use another custom view on top of the target area, but it doesnt look as nice.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I get good results using the method you have already tried. perhaps fiddling around with the alpha is a good idea?

mask = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:window.frame];
[mask setBackgroundColor:[UIColor colorWithWhite:0.0 alpha:0.78]];
[self.view addSubview:mask];

Then later in your code you can remove it:

[mask removeFromSuperview];
or
[mask setHidden:YES];

If you want to make it even better, I suppose you could try using a gradient, either programmatically, or as an image, and using this to darken the edges of the screen such that the content you are displaying forefront appears to be the light source.