CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ios
anavarroma
anavarroma

Reputation: 1382

Dynamically change keyboard's return button but preserve type

I have an input field the user needs to fill with an alphanumeric code. The keyboard the user uses to type the code has a dynamic return button that changes to "send" as he writes some text on the field. When the field is empty the return button has the default value.

To dynamically change the return button type I use the following code:

if([textField.text isEqualToString:@""])
{
    textField.returnKeyType = UIReturnKeyDefault;
}
else
{
    textField.returnKeyType = UIReturnKeySend;
}
[textField reloadInputViews];

However this has the following drawback: since the code is alphanumeric, the user may be typing numbers, and yet the keyboard will always switch back to the letter keyboard, so to type more than one number in a row he will need to be continuously switching to number keyboard.

Is there any way to dynamically change the return key of a keyboard as the user types but to preserve the keyboard state to letters or numbers keyboard?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1202

Answers (2)

anavarroma
anavarroma

Reputation: 1382

As Martin noted above, it's not a bug on Apple's side, but on my side. However I'll be posting the solution I've found since it is the one that solves that particular problem:

Instead of manually changing the return key type when there is text on the text field, Apple provides us with a property called enablesReturnKeyAutomatically that when set to YES it automatically manages the issue, enabling and disabling the return key depending on whether there is text or not in the text field.

Therefore you don't need to modify the returnKeyType property, and thus, no calling to reloadInputViews is required, so the keyboard doesn't change back to its original state.

Upvotes: 1

Martin Stolz
Martin Stolz

Reputation: 5296

I think this is not a bug on Apple's side, more a missing implementation of API for the keyboard. With the new iOS8 API you might want to create your own keyboard returning the UIKeyboardType.

For iOS7 I worked around by inspecting the views of the keyboard. Use the US2KeyboardType CocoaPod or the source: https://github.com/ustwo/US2KeyboardType

Upvotes: 1

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