In my project, I needed to toggle a save button whenever the text in 2 of my textFields changed, so I instinctively looked into the methods of UITextFieldDelegate, since I was already using it.
I learned that there is no method for doing this, the closest is shouldChangeCharactersInRange, which does not solve my problem (technically it does, but it's way more complex than it needs to be).
I found this answer, where the edited part says to create an IBAction for each textField's editingChanged.
In UITextFieldDelegate, there are functions for shouldBegin/didBegin, and shouldEnd/didEnd. Why is there only a function for shouldChange and not didChange?
Related
For analytic purposes, I would like to do the following:
When a UIVIewController's viewDidLoad() is triggered, I would like to trigger a custom function vcWasLoaded(vc:UIViewController).
Similarly, when a UIButton is tapped, I would like to trigger a custom function btnWasTapped(bt:UIButton).
I would like to achieve the above without subclasses. Anyway to achieve the above using protocols, extensions, or reactive frameworks?
Method swizzling is the only thing I can think of that you could use that would let you do this without subclassing. You'd replace the implementation of viewDidLoad, and one of the lower-level button methods, and then call the original implementation in yours. (I've only dabbled in method swizzling, and it was many years ago, before Swift existed. I don't know much about Objective-C method swizzling, and know exactly zero about method swizzling in Swift.)
This would be much simpler and cleaner if you created a subclass of UIViewController and made it the base class of all of your view controllers.
I am working with keyboard resign features in iPhone app development. I would like to know why
self.textField.delegate = self
needs to be included into the viewDidLoad of a viewController. I have tried to find reasons of this but no explanation has been clear so far.
A few points
The reason you need to set the delegate is because without it the view doesn't know about the view controller. So it wouldn't know about your method textFieldDidEndEditing and it would never be called.
That is the basic premise of delegate, you are telling that object, "here is an object that I want you to call methods on"
It doesn't have to be set in viewDidLoad - but it's often the most convient place to set up delegates for views.
The delegate doesn't have to be the view controller (self), in your case it's the simplest way, but with a UITableView its common to have another class be the delegate so that all the logic isn't in one place and so it can be changed.
The UITextFieldDelegate protocol defines methods that you use to manage the editing and validation of text in a UITextField object. All of the methods of this protocol are optional.
A text field calls the methods of its delegate in response to important changes. You use these methods to validate text that was typed by the user, to respond to specific interactions with the keyboard, and to control the overall editing process. Editing begins shortly before the text field becomes the first responder and displays the keyboard (or its assigned input view).
From more info. check apple doc.
Its not necessary to use self.textField.delegate = self if you don't want to manage the editing and validation of text in a UITextField object as all the methods of UITextFieldDelegate is optional.
For your other questions like what does .delegate = self do??
When you "set the delegate," what you are doing is saying where you want the messages to go.
Hence,
blah.delegate = amazingPlace will send the messages to "amazingPlace".
blah.delegate = somewhereElse will send the messages to "somewhereElse".
blah.delegate = self will send the messages to you.
... check this source link for details
Delegates are key concepts in iOS development so I'd suggest taking a good look at the documentation for them. It can be particularly useful to create your own custom delegates in certain situations too so understanding and using them in the right places can really help improve the structure of your projects.
There are a couple of key reasons for using them. Firstly, they allow safe communication between classes. In your example, the textField object that you're using is communicating back to your view controller. This is why you need to set your view controller as its delegate. Otherwise the text field doesn't have a delegate object (your view controller) to communicate with. The text field fires certain methods at certain times, such as textFieldDidBeginEditing, and calls these on its delegate object if it has one. When you register your view controller as the text view's delegate you can tap into these callbacks.
The other benefit is that delegates allow you to separate concerns and encapsulate or abstract responsibilities. It might be that the main concern for the text view is how to handle text in its view but not necessarily what to do when has been entered, or when the return button in the keyboard is pressed, or how to validate text that has been input. It's better that these tasks are handed over to something else, such as a delegate (in Obj-C parlance), and that is why in your example you have to register one class as the delegate for another.
As stated before, UITextfield delegation allows you to control events on your textfield.
You ll have the ability to edit functions like
textFieldShoulEndEditing
or
textFieldDidEndEditing
in order to add custom rules, for example : text validation.
Take a look at Apple doc.
If you don't need it, you can delete this line and UITextfieldDelegate on your class declaration.
You need to either set the delegate of a UITextField in code with self.textField.delegate = self
or make your viewcontroller (or any other class) a delegate with class MyViewController: UITextFieldDelegate and set the delegate of the UITextField in the storyboard by control dragging from the textfield to the viewController.
I have tried to make a location autocomplete text view class by subclassing UITextField and use Google Place Autocomplete API. This works great, but I have a design error due to the implementation. To observe when the user types text, I set the UITextFieldDelegate to self in the custom subclass and track changes to the typed text in textView:shouldChangeTextInRange:replacementText:. This works, but here is the design error: If someone now wants to check what is typed into the custom subclass by setting the delegate to something new, the delegate of my class is not set to the object of the class itself anymore. Now the custom class is useless. Is there any way to either get the text as it is typed without the delegate, prevent the delegate from being changed, or in any other way fix my problem?
A few options I have though about that could work, but in a bad way:
Check regularly what the text property is: Should be obvious why busy waiting is a stupid idea
Override the delegate property and set it to private: Not sure if this will even work, but if it did, the class is no longer a proper subclass of UITextField and all delegate methods are unavailable when implementing my subclass.
Provide a new delegate for further use of the delegate: Allows someone to get the same things as the UITextFieldDelegate provides, but it still messes up the documentation and proper implementation of UITextField
Delegates in UIKit I normally one to one connections. Which can cause the problem you have described.
If you want multiple delegates of a UITextField I would derive a class from UITextField for example MYTextField and add a method to addDelegate and removeDelegate that maintains a list of delegates. The sent the MYTextField's delegate to itself and broadcast any delegate method to all listeners in the delegate array.
this post shows example code on how do maintain a list of multiple delegates.
Delegation to multiple objects
Whenever I create a UI object such as UITextField programmatically, I do this:
txt.delegate = self;
A compiler warning appears and asks me to add UITextFieldDelegate in the .h file.
I noticed though that it makes no difference with or without, the code works fine either way.
But the compiler warning disappears. Why is this?
You don't actually need to set the delegate property on your objects unless you are actually using the delegate methods. For example, if you need to know when the UITextField is about to begin editing. If you don't need to know when these things occur, you don't need to set the delegate.
Looking at it the other way, if you make your class conform to a delegate method (by adding <SomeClassDelegate> in the .h file), and then forget to implement required delegate methods, you'll get a warning from the compiler, and a crash when the app runs (and sends a required delegate message to your object).
To answer your question about not adding UITextFieldDelegate to your .h file, imagine your friend is looking for a French translator. You find a foreign looking man and introduce him. Your friend asks "But can he speak French?" You reply "I don't know". This is your warning.
I've got a view controller xib file with several views in it. I'm building a wizard-type interface. I'm just doing a simple fade between the views, and I'm already using a navigation controller for the main interface. I'd prefer not to use one for this wizard. Anyway, in the views, each panel has at least a button, some sort of input field (usually a UITextField) and some helper text hard coded in a UILabel.
The problem is that not all the UITextField objects are calling the textFieldDidChange method in the delegate (File's Owner - .m file associated with the xib), but all the UITextField objects ARE calling the textFieldDidBeginEditing method.
Makes no sense to me. I feel like I must be missing something simple in how I set up the screens, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out. Each of the screens all look identical in the property sheets (on the right hand side of Xcode), and everything is wired up correctly in the File's Owner property sheet, both in IBOutlet and IBActions.
Here are some shots of what's going on...
Ideas? Thanks.
Here are links to the screen caps of the vital parts.
(being a new member is making it hard to add all the info I need with screen caps!)
As far as I now, there is no delegate method with the header textFieldDidChange. You have created a method of your own, which is depending on a NSNotification. Make sure all the UITextFields are send the right notification.
There is no such method on a UITextFieldDelegate
You may have confused textViewDidChange, which is a delegate method for a UITextView, but itis passed the UITextView that generated the event, not an NSNotification.
Seems like you want textField:shouldChangeCharactersInRange:replacementString: instead.
This is resolved. I'm a knucklehead. :-)
I was attaching my own notifier/observer and hadn't done so for the last few UITextField objects. Sorry to bother y'all.