Sliding the keyboard to the left in iOS - ios

Question

I'm wondering if there is a way to slide the first-responder keyboard to the left or to the right when the user press a button.
http://cl.ly/image/143K3t403d1m/1.png
I make the button as a keyboard-accessory view. When it's tapped the keyboard should slide to the left displaying another custom inputs panel.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

If you want a keyboard that can be selected from the system (using the globe key), you'll need to read this article about creating a Custom Keyboard App Extension for iOS 8.
If you just want to be able to switch between inputView objects, the following code will get you there:
// ViewController.m
#import "ViewController.h"
#interface ViewController () {
}
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark - UI Controls
#property (strong, nonatomic) UIInputView *inputView;
#property (strong, nonatomic) UITextField *textField;
#end
#implementation ViewController
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark - View Lifecycle
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[self setupUserInterface];
}
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark - Keyboard switching
- (void)switchKeyboard {
// Simply toggle the "inputView" for self.textField
if (self.textField.inputView == nil) {
self.textField.inputView = self.inputView;
} else {
self.textField.inputView = nil;
}
[self.textField resignFirstResponder];
[self.textField becomeFirstResponder];
}
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark - UI Setup
// All of the code below here
// is for pure, in-code AutoLayout
- (void)setupUserInterface {
[self createControls];
[self setupControls];
[self layoutControls];
}
- (void)createControls {
self.textField = [[UITextField alloc] init];
self.textField.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect;
self.inputView = [[UIInputView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds.size.width, 216.0f)];
self.inputView.backgroundColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
}
- (void)setupControls {
UIToolbar *toolbar = [[UIToolbar alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds.size.width, 44.0f)];
toolbar.backgroundColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
// When the button is tapped, it'll execute "switchKeyboard" above
UIBarButtonItem *switchButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"Switch" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleDone target:self action:#selector(switchKeyboard)];
toolbar.items = #[switchButton];
self.textField.inputAccessoryView = toolbar;
[self.textField setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];
}
- (void)layoutControls {
[self.view addSubview:self.textField];
[self.view addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:#"H:|-[textfield]-|"
options:0
metrics:nil
views:#{#"textfield": self.textField}]];
[self.view addConstraints:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:#"V:|-(height)-[textfield(==height)]"
options:0
metrics:#{#"height" : #(40)}
views:#{#"textfield": self.textField}]];
}
#end
Caveat: You will need to do a lot of tweaking to make sure the user experience is good. In my testing, on the simulator (iPhone 4S), this works ok, but isn't the smoothest user experience.