IOS 8 changing keyboard height

Question

This question does not relate to the new custom keyboards for ios8, but to the existing keyboard I had created for my ios7 app.

When giving a choice to the user from a list of options, you can use the UIPickerView for a keyboard. However in some cases I have only two choices and I don't like the picker view in that case. So I created my own UITableView keyboard. The size of this keyboard depends on the number of rows in the tableview (with a maximum height). I set the height of the keyboard in ViewWilAppear . This is working very well in ios7, but in ios8 the new height is not taken into account. I don't understand what is wrong. Can anyone help me to get this working again in ios8.

The keyboard in ios7 (sorry for the big picture, I don't know how to scale it):

The keyboard in ios8:

The code for my keyboard:

@interface LBTableKeyBoardVC () <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource>

// List view in table form
@property (weak, nonatomic) IBOutlet UITableView *tableView;

// Last selected item in list
@property (strong, nonatomic) NSIndexPath *lastSelected;

// flag for using selecting mark when selecting a item
@property (nonatomic) BOOL selectionMark;

@end



@implementation LBTableKeyBoardVC

#define MAX_HEIGHT_KEYBOARD     245


#pragma mark - View initialization

- (id)initWithData:(NSArray *)data {
    // set data
    self.listData = data;

    // init view controller
    self = [self initWithNibName:@"LBTableKeyBoardVC" bundle:nil];

    return self;
}

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    if (self) {
        [self setup];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    [self setup];
}

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];

    [self.tableView reloadData];

//    [self setNewHeight:[NSNumber numberWithInteger:(self.listData.count * self.tableView.rowHeight)]];
    [self performSelector:@selector(setNewHeight:) withObject:[NSNumber numberWithInteger:(self.listData.count * self.tableView.rowHeight)] afterDelay:0];
}

- (void)setup {
    // initialize table view
    self.tableView.delegate = self;
    [self.tableView registerClass:[UITableViewCell class] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"ListItem"];

    // resize keyboard if necessary
    // This is the code that will make sure the view does not get resized to the default keyboard frame size
    self.view.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingNone;
    self.tableView.rowHeight = 44;

    self.selectionMark = YES;
}

- (void)dealloc {
    self.tableView.delegate = nil;
    self.delegate = nil;
    self.listData = nil;
}

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
    [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
}

- (void)setNewHeight:(NSNumber *)height {
    NSInteger currentHeight = self.view.frame.size.height;
    NSInteger heightInt = [height integerValue];

    if (heightInt  != currentHeight) {
        if (heightInt > MAX_HEIGHT_KEYBOARD) {
            heightInt = MAX_HEIGHT_KEYBOARD;
        }

        self.view.frame = CGRectMake(self.view.frame.origin.x, self.view.frame.origin.y, self.view.frame.size.width, heightInt);
    }
}


#pragma mark UITableViewDataSource

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    return [self.listData count];
}

- (UITableViewCell*)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"ListItem";
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier forIndexPath:indexPath];

    if (cell == nil) {
        cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc]initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    }

    cell.textLabel.text = [self textForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
    cell.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithHexString:@"C7CBD3"];

    return cell;
}

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    if (self.selectionMark) {
        // deselect old
        UITableViewCell *old = [self.tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:self.lastSelected];
        old.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone;
        [old setSelected:NO animated:YES];

        // select new
        UITableViewCell *cell = [self.tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
        cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark;
        cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleDefault;
        [cell setSelected:YES animated:YES];

        // keep track of last selected
        self.lastSelected = indexPath;
    }

    [self.delegate keyboard:self.view selectedItem:[self textForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath]];
}


#pragma mark - List data

- (NSString *)textForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    return [self.listData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
}

@end

EDIT as requested:

I create the keyboard as follows:

- (LBTableKeyBoardVC *)genderKeyBoard {
    if (!_genderKeyBoard) {
        _genderKeyBoard = [self tableKeyBoardWithData:@[NSLocalizedString(@"Male", "Gender keyboard option for male"), NSLocalizedString(@"Female", "Gender keyboard option for female")]];
    }

    return _genderKeyBoard;
}

I use the keyboard for a UITextField in a custom UITableViewCell :

textFieldCell.textField.inputView = self.genderKeyBoard.view;

Answer 1

I've got it working again, although I don't understand while the old solution is not working. So if someone knows why... I'm still interested to learn more.

Solution:

- (void)setup {
    // initialize table view
    self.tableView.delegate = self;
    [self.tableView registerClass:[UITableViewCell class] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"ListItem"];

    // resize keyboard if necessary
    // This is the code that will make sure the view does not get resized to the default keyboard frame size
    self.view.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingNone;
    self.tableView.rowHeight = KEYBOARD_ROWHEIGHT;

    // set height of keyboard view according the number of rows in the table
    [self setNewHeight:[NSNumber numberWithInteger:(self.listData.count * self.tableView.rowHeight)]];

    self.selectionMark = YES;
}

I set the new height in setup . Here I already know the data of the table and I can calculate the height for the view of the keyboard. I removed the call to setNewHeight: in viewWillAppear: . Now the keyboard appears as expected.

I had to change one other thing in comparison with ios7. I had to set the row height of the table programmatically. In the xib-file the row height was already defined as 44, but when I printed the row height with NSLog, it gave a value of -1??