YRDropdownView – A Polite UIAlertView Alternative for iOS

UIKit’s Shortcomings

From day one, iOS developers have been struggling to alert users about simple warnings and errors that may not interrupt the flow of the app. Popping up UIAlertViews requires the user to click a button to move along, which wasn’t quite necessary for warnings that merely limit useability. Adding a UILabel somewhere on the screen isn’t consistent and doesn’t always look great.

Maybe you just have some more information you want to inform your user about. Simply adding it to the screen is sufficient, but what if your information is added off screen? How does your user know it has appeared? TweetBot found a great solution to that. By overlaying a simple panel, with an icon, title, and message, the flow of the app is uninterrupted, yet informs the user in a concise manner.

Imitation Is The Greatest Form Of Flattery

YRDropdownView is a simple and versitile class that will increase the visibility of information relating to your app in a stylish way. YRDropdownView draws inspiration from such libraries like MKInfoPanel, MBProgressHUD, and DSActivityView and fills the gaps where these classes left off.

Usage

herever you want to use YRDropdownView, import the header file as follows:

#import "YRDropdownView.h"

Basic

You can create your dropdown by calling the singleton method:

[YRDropdownView showDropdownInView:self.view
                             title:@"Warning"
                            detail:@"Danger Will Robinson. You cannot do that."];

By default, calling the above method will only dismiss when clicked on. To dismiss manually in your code, call:

[YRDropdownView hideDropdownInView:self.view];

Customizing

There are many different ways to customize the alert by calling different singleton methods:

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInView:(UIView *)view
                                 title:(NSString *)title;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInView:(UIView *)view
                                 title:(NSString *)title
                                detail:(NSString *)detail;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInView:(UIView *)view
                                 title:(NSString *)title
                                detail:(NSString *)detail
                              animated:(BOOL)animated;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInView:(UIView *)view
                                 title:(NSString *)title
                                detail:(NSString *)detail
                                 image:(UIImage *)image
                              animated:(BOOL)animated;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInView:(UIView *)view
                                 title:(NSString *)title
                                detail:(NSString *)detail
                                 image:(UIImage *)image
                              animated:(BOOL)animated
                             hideAfter:(float)delay;

+ (BOOL)hideDropdownInView:(UIView *)view;
+ (BOOL)hideDropdownInView:(UIView *)view animated:(BOOL)animated;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window
                                   title:(NSString *)title;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window
                                   title:(NSString *)title
                                  detail:(NSString *)detail;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window
                                   title:(NSString *)title
                                  detail:(NSString *)detail
                                animated:(BOOL)animated;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window
                                   title:(NSString *)title
                                  detail:(NSString *)detail
                                   image:(UIImage *)image
                                animated:(BOOL)animated;

+ (YRDropdownView *)showDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window
                                   title:(NSString *)title
                                  detail:(NSString *)detail
                                   image:(UIImage *)image
                                animated:(BOOL)animated
                               hideAfter:(float)delay;

+ (BOOL)hideDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window;
+ (BOOL)hideDropdownInWindow:(UIWindow *)window animated:(BOOL)animated;

Notes

Label and Background Customization

Currently, the title and detail labels, as well as the yellow background, are static for all dropdowns. Customizing these features are a TODO for this project.

Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) support

ARC support has been neglected in part for now. Your contributions are more than welcome, however. If you want to use YRDropdownView in an ARC project, just add the add the compiler flag:

-fno-objc-arc

to all YRDropdownView files in your project.

Project on GitHub

For the cutting edge releases and outstanding issues, we’ve set up a GitHub repository to keep everything in order. Feel free to post any code related issues or contributions there in addition to in the comments below. We’ll also be doing minor releases there from time to time without making full blog posts. Enjoy!