UIAlertController handle dismiss upon click outside (IPad)

Question

Previous to iOS8 we used the UIActionSheet for showing alert and now we need to use the UIAlertController.

When we used the UIActionSheet we could easily handle situations where the user clicked outside the pop up (which means he want to cancel the operation) by comparing the clickedButtonAtIndex to the cancelButtonIndex - if the user indeed pressed outside the popup we got the cancel button index in this function.

How can we handle these situations with the new UIAlertController? I tried to use the "completion" block but it doesn't have any context. Is there an easy way to handle this? (other than "saving" the actions states in some general variable).

Answer 1

You can add an action with style:UIAlertActionStyleCancel and the handler for this action is called when the user taps outside the popup.

if ([UIAlertController class]) {
    UIAlertController *alertController = [UIAlertController alertControllerWithTitle:@"Alert Title" message:@"A Message" preferredStyle:UIAlertControllerStyleActionSheet];

    [alertController addAction:[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"Cancel" style:UIAlertActionStyleCancel handler:^(UIAlertAction *action) {
        NSLog(@"User clicked button called %@ or tapped elsewhere",action.title);
    }]];

    [alertController addAction:[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"OK" style:UIAlertActionStyleDefault handler:^(UIAlertAction *action) {
        NSLog(@"User clicked button called %@",action.title);
    }]];

    [alertController addAction:[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle:@"Other" style:UIAlertActionStyleDestructive handler:^(UIAlertAction *action) {
        NSLog(@"User clicked button called %@",action.title);
    }]];

    UIControl *aControl = (UIControl *) sender;
    CGRect frameInView = [aControl convertRect:aControl.bounds toView:self.view];
    alertController.popoverPresentationController.sourceRect = frameInView;
    alertController.popoverPresentationController.sourceView = self.view;
    alertController.popoverPresentationController.permittedArrowDirections = UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny;
    [self presentViewController:alertController animated:YES completion:nil];
}

Answer 2

The solution which works for UIAlertController with alert style. Just needed to add gesture recognizer to alertController superview.

    [self presentViewController: alertController
                   animated: YES
                 completion:^{
                     alertController.view.superview.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
                     [alertController.view.superview addGestureRecognizer:[[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget: self action: @selector(alertControllerBackgroundTapped)]];
                 }];

- (void)alertControllerBackgroundTapped
{
    [self dismissViewControllerAnimated: YES
                             completion: nil];
}

Answer 3

UITapGestureRecognizer didn't work for me so I've used this way:

func addDismissControl(_ toView: UIView) {
    let dismissControl = UIControl()
    dismissControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(self.dismissAlertController), for: .touchDown)
    dismissControl.frame = toView.superview?.frame ?? CGRect.zero
    toView.superview?.insertSubview(dismissControl, belowSubview: toView)
}

func dismissAlertController() {
    self.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

func presentAlertController(title: String?, message: String?, preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle,  handler: ((UIAlertAction) -> Swift.Void)? = nil, completion: (() -> Swift.Void)? = nil) {

    let alertController = UIAlertController(title: title, message: nil, preferredStyle: .actionSheet)
    alertController.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .default) { (alertAction) -> Void in
        handler?(alertAction)
    })

    self.present(alertController, animated: true, completion: {
        self.addDismissControl(alertController.view)
        completion?()
    })
}

func someWhereInYourViewController() {
    // ...
    presentAlertController(title: "SomeTitle", message: "SomeMessage", preferredStyle: .actionSheet, handler: { (alertAction) -> Void in
        //do some action
    }, completion: {
        //do something after presentation
    })
    // ...
}