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

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]);

Answer 2

Jeff Lamarche posted some sample code on his blog to do just this. The formatting looked a bit wonky when I tried it but it's probably a good starting point.

Answer 3

Don't use. They'll reject it. My app has just been rejected.

Answer 4

I confirm what eisernWolf said, Apple reject my app for using this method. better add the textbox as a sub view

Answer 5

Private APIs are in the top 3, as Steve Jobs said during 2010 keynote speech.

Answer 6

How would Apple ever know if you used the illegal addTextFieldWithValue way... or used the legal "add my own sub view" way?

(Since Apple never sees anyone's source code.)