Why doesn't becomeFirstResponder trigger soft keyboard on alert message textField

Question

I have an UIAlertController with a textField showing on my app. The textField is selected (the marker is blinking in it) and .becomeFirstResponder is set on the textField . But for some reason, the soft-keyboard isn't showing. I printed a boolean isFirstResponder and it returned false .

I read somewhere that it has to be trigged in viewDidLoad , but that's not possible in this case since the alert is shown by pressing a button from a function that is outside of viewDidLoad

Here's my code:

func verificationPopup(title: String, message: String, codeShouldBeVerified: Bool, context: UIViewController, callback: @escaping() -> Void) {
    let alert = UIAlertController(title: title, message: message, preferredStyle: .alert)

    //THIS IS THE RELEVANT PART
    if(codeShouldBeVerified) {
        alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: { textField in
            textField.placeholder = "Fyra siffror"
            textField.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.center
            textField.delegate = self as? UITextFieldDelegate
            textField.becomeFirstResponder()
            print("HERE", textField.isFirstResponder)
        })
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Jag fick ingen kod", style: .default, handler: { action in
            callback()
        }))

    }
    else {
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .default, handler: { action in
            callback()
            //self.verifyNumber()
        }))

        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Avbryt", style: .cancel, handler: {
            action in
            print("CAAAANCEL")
        }))
    }
    context.present(alert, animated: true)
}

Seems odd that .isFirstResponder returns false when I just set it. What's going on here?

Answer 1

There are circumstances when it's normal that the soft keyboard won't come up.

(a) when there's a Bluetooth keyboard attached to a real device, or

(b) when a hardware keyboard is being simulated in the device simulator (menu: Hardware->Keyboard->Connect Hardware Keyboard).

I know this for a long time and still sometimes it happens to me that I get confused why the keyboard won't come up until I remember to check (mostly when using the simulator). It's easy to miss so make sure that this is not the case here.