What's a simple way to get a text input popup dialog box on an iPhone

Question

I want to get the user name. A simple text input dialog box. Any simple way to do this?

Gnawing

just wait a few months, till about september, and you life will be a lot easier. – Joost

Answer 1

In iOS 5 there is a new and easy way to this. I'm not sure if the implementation is fully complete yet as it's not a gracious as, say, a UITableViewCell, but it should definitly do the trick as it is now standard supported in the iOS API. You will not need a private API for this.

UIAlertView * alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Alert" message:@"This is an example alert!" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Hide" otherButtonTitles:nil];
alert.alertViewStyle = UIAlertViewStylePlainTextInput;
[alert show];
[alert release];

This renders an alertView like this (screenshot taken from the iPhone 5.0 simulator in XCode 4.2):

When pressing any buttons, the regular delegate methods will be called and you can extract the textInput there like so:

- (void)alertView:(UIAlertView *)alertView clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex{ 
    NSLog(@"Entered: %@",[[alertView textFieldAtIndex:0] text]);
}

Here I just NSLog the results that were entered. In production code, you should probably keep a pointer to your alertView as a global variable or use the alertView tag to check if the delegate function was called by the appropriate UIAlertView but for this example this should be okay.

You should check out the UIAlertView API and you'll see there are some more styles defined.

Hope this helped!

-- EDIT --

I was playing around with the alertView a little and I suppose it needs no announcement that it's perfectly possible to edit the textField as desired: you can create a reference to the UITextField and edit it as normal (programmatically). Doing this I constructed an alertView as you specified in your original question. Better late than never, right :-)?

UIAlertView * alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Hello!" message:@"Please enter your name:" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Continue" otherButtonTitles:nil];
alert.alertViewStyle = UIAlertViewStylePlainTextInput;
UITextField * alertTextField = [alert textFieldAtIndex:0];
alertTextField.keyboardType = UIKeyboardTypeNumberPad;
alertTextField.placeholder = @"Enter your name";
[alert show];
[alert release];

This produces this alert:

You can use the same delegate method as I poster earlier to process the result from the input. I'm not sure if you can prevent the UIAlertView from dismissing though (there is no shouldDismiss delegate function AFAIK) so I suppose if the user input is invalid, you have to put up a new alert (or just reshow this one) until correct input was entered.

Have fun!

Berkey

With Automatic Reference Counting, you're not supposed to retain and release objects yourself anymore. – Williwaw

I know, but this answer was written in 2011. – Berkey

The method is depreciated since IOS 9.0. Use instead UIAlertController: – Russian

If you're looking support with Swift 4: https://mcmap.net/q/172441/-what-39-s-a-simple-way-to-get-a-text-input-popup-dialog-box-on-an-iphone – Diner

Answer 2

To make sure you get the call backs after the user enters text, set the delegate inside the configuration handler. textField.delegate = self

Swift 3 & 4 (iOS 10 - 11):

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Click", style: UIAlertActionStyle.default, handler: nil))
alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: {(textField: UITextField!) in
    textField.placeholder = "Enter text:"
    textField.isSecureTextEntry = true // for password input
})
self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

In Swift (iOS 8-10):

override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) {
    var alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert)
    alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Click", style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default, handler: nil))
    alert.addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler({(textField: UITextField!) in
        textField.placeholder = "Enter text:"
        textField.secureTextEntry = true
        })
    self.presentViewController(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

In Objective-C (iOS 8):

- (void) viewDidLoad 
{
    UIAlertController *alert = [UIAlertController alertControllerWithTitle:@"Alert" message:@"Message" preferredStyle:UIAlertControllerStyleAlert];
    [alert addAction:[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"Click" style:UIAlertActionStyleDefault handler:nil]];
    [alert addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler:^(UITextField *textField) {
        textField.placeholder = @"Enter text:";
        textField.secureTextEntry = YES;
    }];
    [self presentViewController:alert animated:YES completion:nil];
}

---

FOR iOS 5-7:

UIAlertView * alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Alert" message:@"INPUT BELOW" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Hide" otherButtonTitles:nil];
alert.alertViewStyle = UIAlertViewStylePlainTextInput;
[alert show];

---

NOTE: Below doesn't work with iOS 7 (iOS 4 - 6 Works)

Just to add another version.

- (void)viewDidLoad{

    UIAlertView* alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Preset Saving..." message:@"Describe the Preset\n\n\n" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel" otherButtonTitles:@"Ok", nil];
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] init];
    [textField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleLine;
    textField.frame = CGRectMake(15, 75, 255, 30);
    textField.placeholder = @"Preset Name";
    textField.keyboardAppearance = UIKeyboardAppearanceAlert;
    [textField becomeFirstResponder];
    [alert addSubview:textField];

}

then I call [alert show]; when I want it.

The method that goes along

- (void)alertView:(UIAlertView *)alertView clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex {         
    NSString* detailString = textField.text;
    NSLog(@"String is: %@", detailString); //Put it on the debugger
    if ([textField.text length] <= 0 || buttonIndex == 0){ 
        return; //If cancel or 0 length string the string doesn't matter
    }
    if (buttonIndex == 1) {
        ...

    }
}

---

Diner

I had something like this since IOS 4 but it seems to break in OS 7 Now use Wakrst's code - save many lines of code. – Rostov

So, what would be the correct way of doing this for iOS7? We are building with iOS6 SDK but it still shows weird on iOS7. – Infinite

Added iOS7 support to the question – Diner

This is not really "For iOS7", this new way of presenting a popup ith an text input is available since iOS 5. – Mesothorax

You are correct, it's not exactly for iOS7 but the recommended way of doing it. I added "FOR iOS 5-7" to the post... – Diner

Found I had to put the following in my alertView:(UIAlertView *) clickedButtonAtIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex delegate method in order to fetch the value of the textField.text: ` NSString *theMessage = [alertView textFieldAtIndex:0].text;` – Gilbertson

UIAlertController show small strings. when the size of string become larger. then some text from this alert is missing. please help me how to solve this problem. is there any scrolling functionality avaliable so that to scroll to the remaining text.? – Merrymerryandrew

I would post a new question as thats a specific discussion that the comments are not meant for. @IbadUrRahman – Diner

replace "var alert" with "let alert" in the swift code to comply with the latest version of swift – Guideboard

Very detailed, thank you. You could also point out the fact that we can process the info in UITextField once a action button is tapped by putting something like let myTextField = alert.textFields![0] as UITextField in the action's handler. This should be the right answer anyway though. – Silhouette

Answer 3

Since IOS 9.0 use UIAlertController:

UIAlertController* alert = [UIAlertController alertControllerWithTitle:@"My Alert"
                                                           message:@"This is an alert."
                                                          preferredStyle:UIAlertControllerStyleAlert];

UIAlertAction* defaultAction = [UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"OK" style:UIAlertActionStyleDefault
                                                  handler:^(UIAlertAction * action) {
                    //use alert.textFields[0].text
                                                       }];
UIAlertAction* cancelAction = [UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"Cancel" style:UIAlertActionStyleDefault
                                                      handler:^(UIAlertAction * action) {
                                                          //cancel action
                                                      }];
[alert addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler:^(UITextField * _Nonnull textField) {
    // A block for configuring the text field prior to displaying the alert
}];
[alert addAction:defaultAction];
[alert addAction:cancelAction];
[self presentViewController:alert animated:YES completion:nil];

Russian

Answer 4

Tested out Warkst's third code snippet--worked great, except I changed it to be default input type instead of numeric:

UIAlertView * alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Hello!" message:@"Please enter your name:" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Continue" otherButtonTitles:nil];
alert.alertViewStyle = UIAlertViewStylePlainTextInput;
UITextField * alertTextField = [alert textFieldAtIndex:0];
alertTextField.keyboardType = UIKeyboardTypeDefault;
alertTextField.placeholder = @"Enter your name";
[alert show];

Junejuneau

Good point! I was messing about with the textField at the time and forgot to change the keyboard type before uploading the code snippet. Glad my code could help you! – Berkey

Answer 5

Try this Swift code in a UIViewController -

func doAlertControllerDemo() {

    var inputTextField: UITextField?;

    let passwordPrompt = UIAlertController(title: "Enter Password", message: "You have selected to enter your passwod.", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert);

    passwordPrompt.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default, handler: { (action) -> Void in
        // Now do whatever you want with inputTextField (remember to unwrap the optional)

        let entryStr : String = (inputTextField?.text)! ;

        print("BOOM! I received '\(entryStr)'");

        self.doAlertViewDemo(); //do again!
    }));


    passwordPrompt.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default, handler: { (action) -> Void in
        print("done");
    }));


    passwordPrompt.addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler({(textField: UITextField!) in
        textField.placeholder = "Password"
        textField.secureTextEntry = false       /* true here for pswd entry */
        inputTextField = textField
    });


    self.presentViewController(passwordPrompt, animated: true, completion: nil);


    return;
}

Steeplejack

The variable inputTextField is unnecessary, and I think causing problems for me. Get the text with passwordPrompt.textFields?.first?.text in the OK action. Also, you can remove the semi-colons. – Alemanni

Answer 6

Just wanted to add an important piece of information that I believe was left out perhaps with the assumption that the ones seeking answers might already know. This problem happens a lot and I too found myself stuck when I tried to implement the viewAlert method for the buttons of the UIAlertView message. To do this you need to 1st add the delegate class which may look something like this:

@interface YourViewController : UIViewController <UIAlertViewDelegate>

Also you can find a very helpful tutorial here!

Hope this helps.

Disraeli

Answer 7

Swift 3:

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Click", style: UIAlertActionStyle.default, handler: nil))
alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: {(textField: UITextField!) in
     textField.placeholder = "Enter text:"
})

self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

Sulfur

Answer 8

For Swift 5.1: (updating previous answer)

func doAlertControllerDemo() {
        
        var inputTextField: UITextField?;
    let passwordPrompt = UIAlertController(title: "Enter Password", message: "You have selected to enter your password.", preferredStyle: UIAlertController.Style.alert);
    
    passwordPrompt.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default, handler: { (action) -> Void in
        // Now do whatever you want with inputTextField (remember to unwrap the optional)
        
        let entryStr : String = (inputTextField?.text)! ;
        
        print("BOOM! I received '\(entryStr)'");
        
        self.doAlertControllerDemo(); //do again!
    }));
    
    passwordPrompt.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default, handler: { (action) -> Void in
        print("done");
    }));
    
    passwordPrompt.addTextField(configurationHandler: {(textField: UITextField!) in
        textField.placeholder = "Password"
        textField.isSecureTextEntry = false       /* true here for pswd entry */
        inputTextField = textField
    });
    
    self.present(passwordPrompt, animated: true, completion: nil);
    return;
}

Faugh

Answer 9

I would use a UIAlertView with a UITextField subview. You can either add the text field manually or, in iOS 5, use one of the new methods.

Nalda

I added the following code from another post, but the popup shows up off the screen (very much on top, with only the bottom half visible) – Gnawing

code UIAlertView *myAlertView = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Your title here" message:@"this gets covered" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel" otherButtonTitles:@"OK", nil]; UITextField *myTextField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(12.0, 45.0, 260.0, 25.0)]; CGAffineTransform myTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, 130.0); [myAlertView setTransform:myTransform]; [myTextField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]]; [myAlertView addSubview:myTextField]; [myAlertView show]; [myAlertView release]; – Gnawing

I tried similar code and it displays the alert view with text box and buttons but there is not enough room for the textfield, it is stuck between the title and the buttons and touches them both. I tried some transforms to scale the frame but the buttons stay where they were so then they need to be moved also. I don't know how to reposition the buttons and I can't believe that all this is necessary to retrieve a single line of text from a prompt to the user. Isn't there a better way than this? – Primordial

Answer 10

Add views to a UIAlertView like this. In iOS 5 there are some "magic" things that do it for you (but that's all under NDA).

Peggiepeggir

I tried this and it does somewhat work. Except the popup is off the screen (the top half of the popup is chopped off). Any ideas why? – Gnawing

I had the same problem, removing the setTranformMakeTranslation(0,109) fixed it for me on both ipad and iphone. It showed up in the right place without it. – Latin

Answer 11

In Xamarin and C#:

var alert = new UIAlertView ("Your title", "Your description", null, "Cancel", new [] {"OK"});
alert.AlertViewStyle = UIAlertViewStyle.PlainTextInput;
alert.Clicked += (s, b) => {
    var title = alert.ButtonTitle(b.ButtonIndex);
    if (title == "OK") {
        var text = alert.GetTextField(0).Text;
        ...
    }
};

alert.Show();

Eboat

Answer 12

Building on John Riselvato's answer, to retrieve the string back from the UIAlertView...

alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Submit", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default) { (action : UIAlertAction) in
            guard let message = alert.textFields?.first?.text else {
                return
            }
            // Text Field Response Handling Here
        })

Eidetic

Answer 13

UIAlertview *alt = [[UIAlertView alloc]initWithTitle:@"\n\n\n" message:nil delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:nil otherButtonTitles:@"OK", nil];

UILabel *lbl1 = [[UILabel alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(25,17, 100, 30)];
lbl1.text=@"User Name";

UILabel *lbl2 = [[UILabel alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(25, 60, 80, 30)];
lbl2.text = @"Password";

UITextField *username=[[UITextField alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(130, 17, 130, 30)];
UITextField *password=[[UITextField alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(130, 60, 130, 30)];

lbl1.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
lbl2.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];

[lbl1 setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
[lbl2 setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];

username.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect;
password.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect;

[alt addSubview:lbl1];
[alt addSubview:lbl2];
[alt addSubview:username];
[alt addSubview:password];

[alt show];

Eraser