UIView.setalpha is not working? - iphone

Question

I have created a bar to appear over the keyboard for next/previous/done like the safari browser. However, the setalpha property of the UIview of the bar doesn't seem to be working. No matter what value I set it to, nothing changes. Here is the code...
here is where the create view is called..
-(void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField{
// Call the createInputAccessoryView method we created earlier.
// By doing that we will prepare the inputAccView.
[self createInputAccessoryView];
// Now add the view as an input accessory view to the selected textfield.
[textField setInputAccessoryView:inputAccView];
// Set the active field. We' ll need that if we want to move properly
// between our textfields.
txtActiveField = textField;
}
here is where i actually create and set its values...
-(void)createInputAccessoryView{
// Create the view that will play the part of the input accessory view.
// Note that the frame width (third value in the CGRectMake method)
// should change accordingly in landscape orientation. But we don’t care
// about that now.
inputAccView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10.0, 0.0, 310.0, 40.0)];
// Set the view’s background color. We’ ll set it here to gray. Use any color you want.
[inputAccView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor darkGrayColor]];
// We can play a little with transparency as well using the Alpha property. Normally
// you can leave it unchanged.
[inputAccView setAlpha: 0.1f];
... code for adding buttons and their properties
}
so basically this is all there is to it. but the setAlpha property does nothing, regardless of what I set it to. However, background color works fine. Any ideas?
Thanks

Answer 1

If you want it to look like the prev/next/done bar in Safari etc, create a UIToolbar with the style set to translucent black. This also has the advantage of laying out your buttons nicely, with the correct style, and auto adjusting between landscape and portrait.
Not a direct answer to your question but probably a better way of acheiving what you actually want.

Answer 2

out of utter curiosity try using:
UIView *overlay = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10.0, 0.0, 310.0, 40.0)];
overlay.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
overlay.alpha = 0.5f;
[self.view addSubview:overlay];
it's hard to tell what the issue is without being able to see how many views you have and how you've stacked them. check you've defined your "addSubview" and what the hierarchy looks like