iOS custom keyboard frame - ios

I am making a custom keyboard and I need to draw something above it. I know that apple disallowed to do that straight, but I'm going to try it myself.
What if I make keyboard's view transparent with the height of a window and place an opaque subview with buttons? In this case I can draw on that transparent view. Can I do that somehow? If not, can I get current view controller's view to draw on it? If yes, is it a bad idea?
Here what i've tried in my KeyboardViewController.m:
[self.view setAlpha:0.5];
[self setModalPresentationStyle:UIModalPresentationOverFullScreen];
self.providesPresentationContextTransitionStyle = YES;
self.definesPresentationContext = YES;

You can use the inputAccessoryView property of whatever control is firstResponder.

Related

How to prevent iOS from resizing your UIViewController's view after return from background

I have a UIViewController that displays a form with several text fields. In order to prevent the text fields from getting blocked by the keyboard, I resize the controller's view when the keyboard appears and disappears.
However, when the keyboard is up, the user presses the home button, and then returns to the app, the controller's view will be resized again to the size it was before the keyboard was up and the keyboard will still be showing.
What's causing my controller's view to be resized on return from background, and how can I prevent it?
Maybe you need to nest a UIView,for example
_backgroundView = [UIView new];
_backgroundView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
_backgroundView.frame = CGRectZero;
[self.view addSubview:_backgroundView];
[_backgroundView mas_makeConstraints:^(MASConstraintMaker *make) {
make.left.right.top.mas_equalTo(self.view);
make.height.mas_equalTo(self.view.mas_height);
}];
then you need add your custom UIView to this backgroundView.
as you said,UIViewController's view will be resized after return from background. so you can nest a UIView of the same size as self.view,and add your custom UIView to this UIView.
In order to prevent the text fields from getting blocked by the keyboard, you can resize this backgroundView when the keyboard appears and disappears. and this time when you click the home button to enter the background or return from background,self.view won't be resized and backgroundView won't be resized too.
Although it is a bit of a hassle, this will solve your problem and will not affect the user experience anymore. And if you have a better solution, please let me know
It sounds like you are setting the frame and not using autolayout. When the view reappears viewDidLayoutSubviews gets called and your frame gets recalculated obliterating your previous change. You can either:
1) Move your frame to viewDidLayoutSubviews and change its size only if the keyboard is showing.
2) Use autolayout and simply pull up your bottom constraint .constant by an amount equal to your keyboard height.
In both cases you should call layoutIfNeeded to trigger autolayout/viewDidLayoutSubviews when the keyboard appears/disappears. This behavior is a good example of why you should not manipulate your frames outside of viewDidLayoutSubviews except for transitory animations.

Change color behind app on rotation

When an iOS app rotates it will reveal a black background when the app is between portrait and landscape. Is it possible to change this color from the default black to white? Changing the UIWindow's background color will not help. Here is an example of the black background in Safari during rotation:
I have done something similar but I couldn't find the source now, but here is the idea:
Create and add a significantly larger view as backing view and center it.
Add the UIWebView as subview of this large view whose background is white.
Re-position the center of the UIWebView, too.
You can do this way:
Add a UIViewController and set it as initial VC (in screenshot it is MainVC).
Add two UIViewContainer: first for holding your background view , and second for your other vcs.
Override viewDidLayoutSubviews in implementation file of background VC (in this case the .m file of red VC)
- (void)viewDidLayoutSubviews
{
[super viewDidLayoutSubviews];
//Some hardcode :)
self.view.frame = CGRectMake(-100, -100, 1136, 1136);
}
After doing this you will have something like this:
I know this is not the best solution, but you can do this way until you find the best one.
I got the same issue. As I understand that you want to remove the black background. The easiest solution that I used is set you window clipsToBounds = true instead of your rootViewController.
window?.clipsToBounds = true
You can solve the problem by adding empty general view controller with oversized bounds into your root viewController and make it the lowest in the view hierarchy:
CGFloat length = 2*MAX(rootViewController.view.bounds.size.height, rootViewController.view.bounds.size.width);
UIView *oversizedBackgroundView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, length, length)];
oversizedBackgroundView.center = vc.view.center;
oversizedBackgroundView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
rootViewController.view.clipsToBounds = NO;
[rootViewController.view addSubview:oversizedBackgroundView];
[rootViewController.view sendSubviewToBack:oversizedBackgroundView];
self.window.rootViewController = rootViewController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
The key point here is to set clipsToBounds to NO

Add clickable and fixed subview to UITableViewController?

I'd like to place an ADBannerView object onto my UITableView screen statically, what means that I want it to always stay above my toolbar (self.navigationController.toolbar), even when the user is scrolling the tableview. I've solved this by adding by ADBannerView as a subview to my toolbar and given it negative values for the frames origin:
[self setBannerViewSize];
[self.navigationController.toolbar addSubview:bannerView];
The only problem is: I can't click and open the iAd this way - I can see the banner but nothing happens when I tap on it.
Since I'm also using a refreshControl, the option to use a UIViewController instead of UITableViewController and add a tableView manually wouldn't work for me. Is there any other way I can get my ADBannerView statically showing in my table view controller AND still being tappable?
Thank you in advice!
Yay!! After all I succeeded in solving this (really annoying) problem by myself (and a lot of reading around)!
First, I found this really world-changing post. Basically this post handles with the topic that a UITableViewController uses self.view for its tableView property, so overriding the tableView property (or synthesizing it manually) plus giving self.view a new view (from application) and adding tableView as its subview would make it possible to reach the real superview of tableView.
But this still didn't solve my problem, although I was sure it would, because it all made sense. My bannerView appeared in the right place (and was fixed) but it still didn't do anything when clicked. But there was a second minor thing I didn't know about:
As I read in this post the superview of a subview doesn't only have to be userInteractionEnabled but also have a non-transparent backgroundColor. Because my superviews background color was set to [UIColor clearColor] it all didn't work - but setting its backGroundColor to e.g. blackColor solved the whole problem: the bannerView got finally tappable! :)
So, my code is now looking like this:
#synthesize tableView;
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
if (!tableView && [self.view isKindOfClass:[UITableView class]]) {
tableView = (UITableView *)self.view;
}
self.view = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[UIScreen mainScreen].applicationFrame];
self.tableView.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view addSubview:self.tableView];
[self resizeTableToFitBanner];
self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[self.view addSubview:bannerView];
// some other code
}
BannerViewController in Apple's iAdSuite sample code solves this problem very elegantly:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/iAdSuite/Introduction/Intro.html
I think you should use a container view, and set things up in IB. You can add a tool bar and ADBannerView to the bottom of the view of your navigation controller's root view controller. Fill the rest of the space with a container view - this will give you an embedded view controller automatically. You should delete this one and then drag in a tableViewController and control drag from the container view to the tableViewController to hook up the embed segue.

How do I get a UINavigationController to NOT change its view size when setting the translucent property?

I have an app where up until now I've been using a UINavigationController with a UINavigationBar that has its property translucent = YES. This means the UINavigationController's content view (i.e. the views from the view controllers you push) to be full-screen (minus status bar).
However, if you set the navigationBar.translucent = NO, this container view becomes 44pt shorter, as I suppose Apple has assumed you don't need any content under an opaque navigationBar.
... except if you're doing what we're doing and are employing a navigationBar that scrolls away (see This Post on how to do that) So I'd like to know if this is possible.
I want to have translucent = NO, but have everything behave as if it were still set to YES. I like the functionality of the translucent = YES, but I don't actually want the bar to be made translucent by UIKit.
What worked for me was to add
extendedLayoutIncludesOpaqueBars = true
in
viewDidLoad
something like this
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
extendedLayoutIncludesOpaqueBars = true
}
Hope it will work for you as well
It's not necessarily a good answer but you could just offset your view that high if you're not translucent.
//This won't take into account orientation and probably other details
if(!self.navigationController.navigationBar.isTranslucent)
{
self.view.frame = CGRectMake(0,0,-44,self.view.bounds.size.height);
}
You could put that in your viewDidLoad or viewWillAppear and if you have a bunch of view controllers you can just subclass them all and put your logic in the subclass.
I found a solution that works, although it is indeed a bit of a hack.
The idea is to give the translucent nav bar an opaque backing. Unfortunately I'm not happy with the solution in that it's dirty and not encapsulated and introduces some potential issues, but i AM happy because it got the job done.
In my Application's base view controller class (i.e. MyViewController : UIViewController), in the viewDidLoad method, I instantiate a new ivar UIView *_navigationBarBG and give it the same frame as self.navigationController.navigationBar. I then set it's backgroundColor property to [UIColor whiteColor] although this is how you achieve some more tint I guess. [EDIT:If you wanted to be a purist (color values remaining exactly as they come from the .psd), you could make the _navigationBarBG a UIImageView and use your custom background there, and the background of the actual UINavigationBar you set to draw clear (or stretch a 1px transparent image if you wanted to use a typical 'change your navigation bar using an image' recipe that's somewhere on the internet)]
if(self.navigationController)
{
_navigationBarBG = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: self.navigationController.navigationBar.frame];
_navigationBarBG.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[self.view addSubview:_navigationBarBG];
}
THEN, (and this is the crappy part, but I don't see any other way), I add this view as a subview. BUT, whenever you would normally make a call to [self.view addSubview: anyView], you have to make sure you call [self.view insertSubview: anyView belowSubview: _navigationBarBG];
if (_navigationBarBG)
[self.view insertSubview: anyView belowSubview:_navigationBarBG];
else
[self.view addSubview: anyView];
If you forget that, these added views will slide under your navbar background and look weird. So you need to know that this is a source of error.
WHY AM I DOING THIS? Again you might ask... I want to be able to have a scrolling navigation bar that scrolls out of the way when you scroll down your table view, thereby giving the user more screen space. This is done by using the scrollView delegate (scrollViewDidScroll:) and also viewWillAppear:
// FIRST DEAL WITH SCROLLING NAVIGATION BAR
CALayer *layer = self.navigationController.navigationBar.layer;
CGFloat contentOffsetY = scrollView.contentOffset.y;
CGPoint newPosition;
if (contentOffsetY > _scrollViewContentOffsetYThreshold && self.scrollingNavigationBarEnabled) {
newPosition = CGPointMake(layer.position.x,
22 - MIN((contentOffsetY - _scrollViewContentOffsetYThreshold), 48.0)); // my nav bar BG image is 48.0 tall
layer.position = newPosition;
[_navigationBarBG setCenter: newPosition]; // if it's nil, nothing happens
}
else
{
newPosition = kNavBarDefaultPosition; // i.e. CGPointMake(160, 22) -- portrait only
layer.position = newPosition;
[_navigationBarBG setCenter: newPosition]; // if it's nil, nothing happens
}
I was looking for an answer to this as I wanted my subviews to be at (0,0) and not (0,44)(in reference to the Screen bounds), but I could not find an answer on how to set this in the NavigationController, which I thought would be an included property.
What I ended up doing that was very simple is adding a subview to the navigation controller that was the width and height of the Navigation Bar, but then insert the subview below the Navigation Bar.
Now the setting is Translucent = YES, but it still appears solid and the subviews behave how I want.
EDIT: After re-reading your original post, I suppose if you're going to be rolling the nav bar away, you'll have to take into account hiding and showing the new subview as you do the same with the nav bar

Pattern to fill the entire screen

Every screen of my app has a common tint. Its not a background. Its a pattern that fills the entire screen and it is top of all the views. You can see the pattern flow continuously from one view to another inside the same screen. And it neither obscures other elements nor participate in event handling.
I tried implementing it with this code in my ViewController.
UIColor* texture = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"Texture.png"]];
UIView* tintView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
[tintView setBackgroundColor:texture];
[tintView setAlpha:0.5];
[self.view addSubview:tintView];
But it doesn't pass on touches to the views behind it.
tintView shouldn't participate in any event handling. Rather it should let other elements behind it, handle the events like they do it normally.
Other way of doing it is set this as a background of the view property of a UIViewController and set a common alpha for all other subviews of view to show the pattern behind. That will be redundant in most ways.
Any better way of doing this?
Make your tintView a subclass of UIView and implement the hitTest:withEvent: method, returning nil. This will make your view transparent to touches. Or set userInteractionEnabled to NO.
Set the background color with a Textured image
UIImage *bgimg = [UIImage imageNamed:#"Texture.png"];
self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:bgimg];

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