滥用UITextField.inputView获得类似的键盘弹出行为

Question

I often want to put my own things in the same place the keyboard pops up, but for my own controls... such as putting a UIDatePicker there, or a custom UIPickerView, or whatever.

I came up with a clumsy way of getting this behavior by having a dummy UITextField and putting my custom view in its inputView property. Then when the user clicks on my item, I just trigger off the UITextField to display the view I've assigned to the inputView.

Then I got to wondering if there was a better less kludgey way to do this. I found this article Show UIPickerView like a keyboard, without UITextField where several people recommend the same thing I do.

My question is this. Is it common to (mis)use the UITextField in this manner?

Answer 1

Many times you will face a UITextfield that you would want to populate through a custom control other than the standrd keyboard. Thus the inputView method was declared and can be used.

What is recommended:

1- if the UItextfield is normal, use the keybard (don't change the input view)

2- if the value is numeric, show the numberpad in keyboard directly (textField.keyboardType = .numberPad)

3- if your textField is a date then you set the input view as a date picker.

4- sometimes you need a UITextField where you need to choose between stuff. Thus you develop your own custom UIPicker and set it as an input View.

5- If what you are tring to achieve don't fall in all the above then you can do your own inputView and assign it.

So in short don't be afraid, it is the normal thing to do!

Hope this helps!