Creating a custom UIKeyBoard for iPhone - iphone

Question

If anyone has the app GymBuddy, then they will know what I am talking about. They seem to use the stock Number Pad keyboard but have added a "." button in the lower left as well as a bar across the top to switch to alpha characters. Does anyone know how to do this? Do I make a new view like the keyboard and pull it up and have the buttons correspond to the textField for input? I can't seem to find any information on customizing a keyboard or creating your own. Thanks

Answer 1

I have done this. Basically you add your own button as a subview of the UIKeyboard like this:
// This function is called each time the keyboard is going to be shown
- (void)keyboardWillShow:(NSNotification *)note {
// Just used to reference windows of our application while we iterate though them
UIWindow* tempWindow;
// Because we cant get access to the UIKeyboard throught the SDK we will just use UIView.
// UIKeyboard is a subclass of UIView anyways
UIView* keyboard;
// Check each window in our application
for(int c = 0; c < [[[UIApplication sharedApplication] windows] count]; c ++)
{
// Get a reference of the current window
tempWindow = [[[UIApplication sharedApplication] windows] objectAtIndex:c];
// Loop through all views in the current window
for(int i = 0; i < [tempWindow.subviews count]; i++)
{
// Get a reference to the current view
keyboard = [tempWindow.subviews objectAtIndex:i];
// From all the apps i have made, they keyboard view description always starts with <UIKeyboard so I did the following
if([[keyboard description] hasPrefix:#"<UIKeyboard"] == YES)
{
// Only add the Decimal Button if the Keyboard showing is a number pad. (Set Manually through a BOOL)
if (numberPadShowing && [keyboard viewWithTag:123] == nil) {
// Set the Button Type.
dot = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
// Position the button - I found these numbers align fine (0, 0 = top left of keyboard)
dot.frame = CGRectMake(0, 163, 106, 53);
dot.tag = 123;
// Add images to our button so that it looks just like a native UI Element.
[dot setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"dotNormal.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[dot setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"dotHighlighted.png"] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];
//Add the button to the keyboard
[keyboard addSubview:dot];
// When the decimal button is pressed, we send a message to ourself (the AppDelegate) which will then post a notification that will then append a decimal in the UITextField in the Appropriate View Controller.
[dot addTarget:self action:#selector(sendDecimal:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
return;
}
else if (numberPadShowing && [keyboard viewWithTag:123])
{
[keyboard bringSubviewToFront:dot];
}
else if (!numberPadShowing)
{
for (UIView *v in [keyboard subviews]){
if ([v tag]==123)
[v removeFromSuperview];
}
}
}
}
}
}
- (void)sendDecimal:(id)sender {
// The decimal was pressed
}
Hope that's clear.
-Oscar

Answer 2

Check this post, this could be your answer:
UIKeyboardTypeNumberPad and the missing "return" key