UITextField keyboard Next

Question

Created Oct ’15

Replies 3

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I have a UIViewController with several UITextFields. When I click on one, the keyboard text entry screen comes up, covering my VC.

First question: If the user enters some text, then hits [Menu] to return to my VC, the text doesn't get entered. He has to hit [Next]. Am I missing something? Is that the intended behavior?

Second question: The keyboard takes up the whole screen, and there is no hint on that screen about what the user is supposed to be entering. Of course, if he just clicked on a text field, presumably he'll remember which field he was going to enter text on. But if instead of hitting Menu and returning to my VC, he clicks Next, now he'll be entering text in the "next" field w/o ever having returned to my VC, and he's not going to remember which field was the "Next" one. So how do I hint to the user from the keyboard screen which text field they're on? In iOS, we could do tricks to ensure that the textfield and prompt stayed in view, because they keyboard didn't cover the whole screen. I don't see anything in IB or the documentation.

Third question: How do I control the order of UITextFields that Next cycles through? My VC has two columns of text fields, and I'd like Next to cycle down the left column, then down the right column, i.e., down then across. But it appears to go across, then down. Can I override this? Again, I don't see anything in IB or the documentation.

Thanks!

...R

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Answer 1

wm8s OP

Oct ’15

FWIW, I think I've found:

First: I guess I'll have to implement my own edit handler.

Second: Placeholder Text shows up on the Keyboard screen. Although the placeholder text and the keyboard-screen prompt should be different to me, that's way better than nothing.

Third: Again, I'll have to implement my own tag-or-whatever-based focus order handling.

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Answer 2

Scott Chou OP

Nov ’15

How do you implment your tag-or-whatever-based focus order handling?

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Answer 3

wm8s OP

Nov ’15

In tvOS, I decided not to. In previous iOS apps, I implemented it by tagging each text field with "my tag" and "next tag" values, then intercepting when the user exits a text field, and forcing the focus to the control whose "my tag" = the control he's leaving's "next tag". I gave up in tvOS because Apple plainly doesn't want us to force the focus to a particular field. After hours of wasted efforts, I gave in.

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