Check on UIAlertController TextField for enabling the button

Question

I have an AlertController with a text field and two button: CANCEL and SAVE. This is the code:

@IBAction func addTherapy(sender: AnyObject)
{
    let addAlertView = UIAlertController(title: "New Prescription", message: "Insert a name for this prescription", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert)

    addAlertView.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel",
                                         style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default,
                                         handler: nil))

    addAlertView.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Save",
                                         style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default,
                                         handler: nil))

    addAlertView.addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler({textField in textField.placeholder = "Title"})


    self.presentViewController(addAlertView, animated: true, completion: nil)


}

What I want to do is implement a check on the textfield for disabling the SAVE button when the textfield is empty just like Pictures Application of iOS when you want create a NewAlbum. Please someone can explain me what to do?

Answer 1

I would first create the alertcontroller with the save action initially disabled. Then when adding the textfield inculde a Notification to observe its change in the handler and in that selector just toggle the save actions enabled property.

Here is what I am saying:

//hold this reference in your class
weak var AddAlertSaveAction: UIAlertAction?

@IBAction func addTherapy(sender : AnyObject) {

    //set up the alertcontroller
    let title = NSLocalizedString("New Prescription", comment: "")
    let message = NSLocalizedString("Insert a name for this prescription.", comment: "")
    let cancelButtonTitle = NSLocalizedString("Cancel", comment: "")
    let otherButtonTitle = NSLocalizedString("Save", comment: "")

    let alertController = UIAlertController(title: title, message: message, preferredStyle: .Alert)

    // Add the text field with handler
    alertController.addTextFieldWithConfigurationHandler { textField in
        //listen for changes
        NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, selector: "handleTextFieldTextDidChangeNotification:", name: UITextFieldTextDidChangeNotification, object: textField)
    }


    func removeTextFieldObserver() {
        NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().removeObserver(self, name: UITextFieldTextDidChangeNotification, object: alertController.textFields[0])
    }

    // Create the actions.
    let cancelAction = UIAlertAction(title: cancelButtonTitle, style: .Cancel) { action in
        NSLog("Cancel Button Pressed")
        removeTextFieldObserver()
    }

    let otherAction = UIAlertAction(title: otherButtonTitle, style: .Default) { action in
        NSLog("Save Button Pressed")
        removeTextFieldObserver()
    }

    // disable the 'save' button (otherAction) initially
    otherAction.enabled = false

    // save the other action to toggle the enabled/disabled state when the text changed.
    AddAlertSaveAction = otherAction

    // Add the actions.
    alertController.addAction(cancelAction)
    alertController.addAction(otherAction)

    presentViewController(alertController, animated: true, completion: nil)
} 

    //handler
func handleTextFieldTextDidChangeNotification(notification: NSNotification) {
    let textField = notification.object as UITextField

    // Enforce a minimum length of >= 1 for secure text alerts.
    AddAlertSaveAction!.enabled = textField.text.utf16count >= 1
}

I am doing this in another project - I got this pattern directly from apple examples. They have a very good example project outlining a few of these patterns in the UICatalog examples: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/samplecode/UICatalog/Introduction/Intro.html

Answer 2

There is a much simpler way without using notification center, in swift:

weak var actionToEnable : UIAlertAction?

func showAlert()
{
    let titleStr = "title"
    let messageStr = "message"

    let alert = UIAlertController(title: titleStr, message: messageStr, preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)

    let placeholderStr =  "placeholder"

    alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: {(textField: UITextField) in
        textField.placeholder = placeholderStr
        textField.addTarget(self, action: #selector(self.textChanged(_:)), for: .editingChanged)
    })

    let cancel = UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertActionStyle.cancel, handler: { (_) -> Void in

    })

    let action = UIAlertAction(title: "Ok", style: UIAlertActionStyle.default, handler: { (_) -> Void in
        let textfield = alert.textFields!.first!

        //Do what you want with the textfield!
    })

    alert.addAction(cancel)
    alert.addAction(action)

    self.actionToEnable = action
    action.isEnabled = false
    self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

func textChanged(_ sender:UITextField) {
    self.actionToEnable?.isEnabled  = (sender.text! == "Validation")
}

Answer 3

Swift 3.0 Updated Solution given By @spoek

func showAlert()
    {
        let titleStr = "title"
        let messageStr = "message"

        let alert = UIAlertController(title: titleStr, message: messageStr, preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)

        let placeholderStr =  "placeholder"

        alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: {(textField: UITextField) in
            textField.placeholder = placeholderStr
            textField.addTarget(self, action: #selector(self.textChanged(_:)), for: .editingChanged)
        })

        let cancel = UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertActionStyle.cancel, handler: { (_) -> Void in

        })

        let action = UIAlertAction(title: "Ok", style: UIAlertActionStyle.default, handler: { (_) -> Void in
            let textfield = alert.textFields!.first!

            //Do what you want with the textfield!
        })

        alert.addAction(cancel)
        alert.addAction(action)

        self.actionToEnable = action
        action.isEnabled = false
        self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    func textChanged(_ sender:UITextField) {
        self.actionToEnable?.isEnabled  = (sender.text! == "Validation")
    }

Answer 4

I implemented a subclass of UIAlertController for conveniently adding text fields and associated enabling and disabling of buttons. The basic logic is similar to that Sourabh Sharma but everything is encapsulated in this subclass for tidiness. This should be helpful if your project involves a lot of such alert functionalities.

public class TextEnabledAlertController: UIAlertController {
  private var textFieldActions = [UITextField: ((UITextField)->Void)]()

  func addTextField(configurationHandler: ((UITextField) -> Void)? = nil, textChangeAction:((UITextField)->Void)?) {
      super.addTextField(configurationHandler: { (textField) in
        configurationHandler?(textField)

        if let textChangeAction = textChangeAction {
            self.textFieldActions[textField] = textChangeAction
            textField.addTarget(self, action: #selector(self.textFieldChanged), for: .editingChanged)

        }
    })

}

  @objc private func textFieldChanged(sender: UITextField) {
    if let textChangeAction = textFieldActions[sender] {
        textChangeAction(sender)
    }
  }
}

To use it, just provide a textChangeAction block when adding the text fields:

    alert.addTextField(configurationHandler: { (textField) in
        textField.placeholder = "Your name"
        textField.autocapitalizationType = .words
    }) { (textField) in
        saveAction.isEnabled = (textField.text?.characters.count ?? 0) > 0
    }

For the full example, see the git page.