Writing a function for UIAlertView? - iphone

Question

I'm sick of writing basic UIAlertView's, ie:
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWith...]] //etc
Instead of doing this, is it possible to put all this in a "helper" function, where I can return the buttonIndex, or whatever an alert usually returns?
For a simple helper function I guess you could feed parameters for the title, message, I'm not sure whether you can pass delegates in a parameter though, or bundle info.
In pseudo-code, it could be like this:
someValueOrObject = Print_Alert(Title="", Message="", Delegate="", Bundle="") // etc
Any help on this would be great.
Thanks

Answer 1

In 4.0+ you can simplify the alert code using blocks, a bit like this:
CCAlertView *alert = [[CCAlertView alloc]
initWithTitle:#"Test Alert"
message:#"See if the thing works."];
[alert addButtonWithTitle:#"Foo" block:^{ NSLog(#"Foo"); }];
[alert addButtonWithTitle:#"Bar" block:^{ NSLog(#"Bar"); }];
[alert addButtonWithTitle:#"Cancel" block:NULL];
[alert show];
See Lambda Alert on GitHub.

Answer 2

This is what I wrote, when I got sick of doing the same:
-(void)alert:(NSString *)title withBody:(NSString *)message firstButtonNamed:(NSString *)firstButtonName {
[self alert: title withBody: message firstButtonNamed: firstButtonName withExtraButtons: nil informing: nil];
}
-(void)alert:(NSString *)title withBody:(NSString *)message firstButtonNamed:(NSString *)firstButtonName informing:(id)delegate {
[self alert: title withBody: message firstButtonNamed: firstButtonName withExtraButtons: nil informing: delegate];
}
-(void)alert:(NSString *)title withBody:(NSString *)message firstButtonNamed:(NSString *)firstButtonName withExtraButtons:(NSArray *)otherButtonTitles informing:(id)delegate {
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
initWithTitle: title
message: message
delegate: delegate
cancelButtonTitle: firstButtonName
otherButtonTitles: nil];
if (otherButtonTitles != nil) {
for (int i = 0; i < [otherButtonTitles count]; i++) {
[alert addButtonWithTitle: (NSString *)[otherButtonTitles objectAtIndex: i]];
}
}
[alert show];
[alert release];
}
You can't write a function that will display an alert and then return a value like a buttonIndex though, because that value-returning only occurs when the user presses a button and your delegate does something.
In other words, the process of asking a question with the UIAlertView is an asynchronous one.