How to navigate through textfields (Next / Done Buttons)

How can I navigate through all my text fields with the "Next" Button on the iPhone Keyboard?

The last text field should close the Keyboard.

I've setup the IB the Buttons (Next / Done) but now I'm stuck.

I implemented the textFieldShouldReturn action but now the Next and Done Buttons close the Keyboard.

in textFieldShouldReturn you should check that the textfield you are currently on is not the last one when they click next and if its n ot dont dismiss the keyboard..

After you exit from one text field, you call [otherTextField becomeFirstResponder] and the next field gets focus.

This can actually be a tricky problem to deal with since often you'll also want to scroll the screen or otherwise adjust the position of the text field so it's easy to see when editing. Just make sure to do a lot of testing with coming into and out of the text fields in different ways and also leaving early (always give the user an option to dismiss the keyboard instead of going to the next field, usually with "Done" in the nav bar)

Here is my solution for this problem.

To solve this (and because I hate relying on tags to do stuff) I decided to add a custom property to the UITextField object. In other words I created a category on UITextField like this :

***UITextField+Extended.h***

@interface UITextField (Extended)

@property(retain, nonatomic)UITextField* nextTextField;

@end

***UITextField+Extended.m***

#import "UITextField+Extended.h"
#import <objc/runtime.h>

static char defaultHashKey;

@implementation UITextField (Extended)

- (UITextField*) nextTextField {
return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, &defaultHashKey);
}

- (void) setNextTextField:(UITextField *)nextTextField{
objc_setAssociatedObject(self, &defaultHashKey, nextTextField, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC);
}

@end


Now, here is how I use it :

UITextField *textField1 = ...init your textfield
UITextField *textField2 = ...init your textfield
UITextField *textField3 = ...init your textfield

textField1.nextTextField = textField2;
textField2.nextTextField = textField3;
textField3.nextTextField = nil;

And implement the textFieldShouldReturn method :

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *)theTextField {

UITextField *next = theTextField.nextTextField;
if (next) {
[next becomeFirstResponder];
} else {
[theTextField resignFirstResponder];
}

return NO;
}

I now have kind of a linked list of UITextField, each one knowing who's next in the line.

Hope it'll help.

A very easy method for dismissing the keyboard when the 'Done' button is pressed is:

Create a new IBAction in the header

- (IBAction)textFieldDoneEditing:(id)sender;

In the implementation file (.m file) add the following method:

- (IBAction)textFieldDoneEditing:(id)sender
{
[sender resignFirstResponder];
}

Then, when you come to link the IBAction to the textfield - link to the 'Did End On Exit' event.

I like the OO solutions that have already been suggested by Anth0 and Answerbot. However, I was working on a quick and small POC, so I didn't want to clutter things with subclasses and categories.

Another simple solution is to create an NSArray of fields and lookup the next field when you press next. Not an OO solution, but quick, simple, and easy to implement. Also, you can see and modify the ordering at a glance.

Here's my code (built upon other answers in this thread):

@property (nonatomic) NSArray *fieldArray;

- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];

fieldArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: firstField, secondField, thirdField, nil];
}

- (BOOL) textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *) textField {
BOOL didResign = [textField resignFirstResponder];
if (!didResign) return NO;

NSUInteger index = [self.fieldArray indexOfObject:textField];
if (index == NSNotFound || index + 1 == fieldArray.count) return NO;

id nextField = [fieldArray objectAtIndex:index + 1];
activeField = nextField;
[nextField becomeFirstResponder];

return NO;
}

* I always return NO because I don't want a line break inserted. Just thought I'd point that out since when I returned YES it would automatically exit the subsequent fields or insert a line break in my TextView. It took me a bit of time to figure that out.
* activeField keeps track of the active field in case scrolling is necessary to unobscure the field from the keyboard. If you have similar code, make sure you assign the activeField before changing the first responder. Changing first responder is immediate and will fire the KeyboardWasShown event immediately.

-(BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *)textField
{
[[self.view viewWithTag:textField.tag+1] becomeFirstResponder];
return YES;
}

I have added to PeyloW's answer in case you're looking to implement a previous/next button functionality:

- (IBAction)moveThroughTextFields:(UIBarButtonItem *)sender
{
NSInteger nextTag;
UITextView *currentTextField = [self.view findFirstResponderAndReturn];

if (currentTextField != nil) {
// I assigned tags to the buttons. 0 represent prev & 1 represents next
if (sender.tag == 0) {
nextTag = currentTextField.tag - 1;

} else if (sender.tag == 1) {
nextTag = currentTextField.tag + 1;
}
}
// Try to find next responder
UIResponder* nextResponder = [self.view viewWithTag:nextTag];
if (nextResponder) {
// Found next responder, so set it.
// I added the resign here in case there's different keyboards in place.
[currentTextField resignFirstResponder];
[nextResponder becomeFirstResponder];
} else {
// Not found, so remove keyboard.
[currentTextField resignFirstResponder];

}
}

Where you subclass the UIView like this:

@implementation UIView (FindAndReturnFirstResponder)
- (UITextView *)findFirstResponderAndReturn
{
for (UITextView *subView in self.subviews) {
if (subView.isFirstResponder){
return subView;
}
}
return nil;
}
@end

Hi to everyone please see [this one][1]

[1]:http://www.randomsequence.com/articles/adding-a-toolbar-with-next-previous-above-uitextfield-keyboard-iphone/

- (void)nextPrevious:(id)sender
{

UIView *responder = [self.view findFirstResponder];

if (nil == responder || ![responder isKindOfClass:[GroupTextField class]]) {
return;
}

switch([(UISegmentedControl *)sender selectedSegmentIndex]) {
case 0:
// previous
if (nil != ((GroupTextField *)responder).previousControl) {
[((GroupTextField *)responder).previousControl becomeFirstResponder];
DebugLog(@"currentControl: %i previousControl: %i",((GroupTextField *)responder).tag,((GroupTextField *)responder).previousControl.tag);
}
break;
case 1:
// next
if (nil != ((GroupTextField *)responder).nextControl) {
[((GroupTextField *)responder).nextControl becomeFirstResponder];
DebugLog(@"currentControl: %i nextControl: %i",((GroupTextField *)responder).tag,((GroupTextField *)responder).nextControl.tag);
}
break;
}
}

I tried to solve this problem using a more sophisticated approach based on assigning each cell (or `UITextField`) in a `UITableView` a unique tag value that can be later retrieved:
[activate-next-uitextfield-in-uitableview-ios][1]

I hope this helps!


[1]:

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