iPhone modal View with parent view semi-visible?

Question

I am adding a modal view using the following code:

[self presentModalViewController:phrasesEditor animated:YES];

How can I make the modal view semi-transparent so that the superview "shines" through?

My complete method/function looks like this:

-(IBAction)showEditPhrases:(id)sender{
    PhrasesViewController *phrasesEditor = [[PhrasesViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"PhrasesViewController" bundle:nil];
    phrasesEditor.modalTransitionStyle = UIModalTransitionStyleCrossDissolve;
    [phrasesEditor.view setAlpha: 0.5];
    [phrasesEditor.view setBackgroundColor: [UIColor clearColor]];
    [self presentModalViewController:phrasesEditor animated:YES];
    [phrasesEditor release];
}

EDIT:

The pragmatic approach of changing the alpha will not work, apparently. How can I load a NIB into a UIView and interact with it?

I have a UIViewController now. Do I convert/modify/change it into a UIVIew and then load it, or am I supposed to do something else?

EDIT 2:

I tried [self.view addSubview:phrasesEditor.view];, but that leaves me with no way to remove the subview. Each view seems to have its own View Controller.

EDIT 3:

I thought that I should mention that the superview is inside of a view controller called iDecideViewController and the phrasesEditor has a separate View Controller.

Answer 1

When you present a modal view it will actually unload the previous view so that is not what you want at all. UIView has a method called addSubview which will put the new view on top of its siblings.

Instead of:

[self presentModalViewController:phrasesEditor animated:YES];

do:

[self.view addSubview:phrasesEditor.view];

This is assuming you are already in a ViewController subclass.