display popover when user click into text field? - objective-c

Question

Hi i have been following a book a how to display the popover when the user clicks on a toolbar button item. It works fine but I want to display the popover when user clicks into a textField. It seems like it would be some minor adjustment. Like changing the IBAction
"showPopover" method a bit. This is what the code looks like for that method:
- (IBAction)showPopover:(id)sender{
if(popoverController == nil){ //make sure popover isn't displayed more than once in the view
popoverController = [[UIPopoverController alloc]initWithContentViewController:popoverDetailContent];
[popoverController presentPopoverFromBarButtonItem:sender permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
popoverController.delegate = self;
}
}
There is a another instance method other than "presentPopoverFromBarItem" that is called
"presentPopoverFromRect".Would I use that instead? I tried to write the code for it but I'm not sure how to relate it to my TextField or how draw the rectangle needed.Can anyone help me with this?Thanks.

Answer 1

you have to use the textfields delegate method textViewShouldBeginEditing:
Something like this:
- (BOOL)textViewShouldBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView {
if(popoverController == nil){ //make sure popover isn't displayed more than once in the view
popoverController = [[UIPopoverController alloc]initWithContentViewController:popoverDetailContent];
}
[popoverController presentPopoverFromRect:textView.frame inView:self.view permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
popoverController.delegate = self;
return NO; // tells the textfield not to start its own editing process (ie show the keyboard)
}

Answer 2

For those who want to display a popover, but do not want to display the keyboard when the text field is tapped, here is the solution that I've always used (Notice this is different than the previous answers textFieldShouldBeginEditing):
/*
* Handle when text field is about to start edit mode
*/
- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *) textField
{
// Create popover controller if nil
[self.myPopover presentPopoverFromRect:textField.frame inView:self.view permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
return NO;
}
Hope this helps!

Answer 3

if your textField is inside a table cell your popover will point to the top of the screen because the frame of the textField frame is in reference to the view that contains the textfield. So you need to give it the correct view reference. You need to use the textField.superview as your view reference.
- (BOOL)textFieldShouldBeginEditing:(UITextField *) textField
{
...
[self.myPopover presentPopoverFromRect:textField.frame inView:textField.superview permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
return NO;
}

Answer 4

Yes, there is a presentPopoverFromRect method.
To wire it up to the UITextField, you will need to implement the UITextFieldDelegate and call your showPopover code from the textFieldDidBeginEditing method.
The rect you use should be the rect of the TextField.