How to display UIView over keyboard in iOS

Question

I want to create a simple view over keyboard, when users tap "Attach" button in inputAccessoryView. Something like this:

Is there an easy way to do it? Or i should create my custom keyboard?

Answer 1

Do you have find some effective method to solve this problem? In iOS9,you put your customView on the top of the windows:

UIApplication.sharedApplication().windows[windowCount-1].addSubview(customView);

But if the keyboard dismisses, the top Windows will be removed, so your customView will be removed. Looking forward for your help! Thank you for your help!

Answer 2

Swift 4 version:

let customView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.size.height - 300, width: self.view.frame.size.width, height: 300))
customView.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
customView.layer.zPosition = CGFloat(Float.greatestFiniteMagnitude)
UIApplication.shared.windows.last?.addSubview(customView)

The trick is to add the customView as a top subview to the UIWindow that holds the keyboard - and it happens to be the last window in UIApplication.shared.windows.

Answer 3

Swift 4.0

let customView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.size.height-300, width: self.view.frame.size.width, height: 300))
customView.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
customView.layer.zPosition = CGFloat(MAXFLOAT)
let windowCount = UIApplication.shared.windows.count
UIApplication.shared.windows[windowCount-1].addSubview(customView)

Answer 4

While this can be possible with accessing the topmost window, I would avoid doing this, as it clearly interferes with Apple's guidelines.

What I would do is dismissing the keyboard and replacing its frame with a view with same dimensions.

The keyboard's frame can be accessed from keyboard notifications listed here, their userInfo contain a key that can be accessed with UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey.

Answer 5

You can add that new subview to your application window.

func attach(sender : UIButton)
{
    // Calculate and replace the frame according to your keyboard frame
    var customView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.size.height-300, width: self.view.frame.size.width, height: 300))
    customView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
    customView.layer.zPosition = CGFloat(MAXFLOAT)
    var windowCount = UIApplication.sharedApplication().windows.count
    UIApplication.sharedApplication().windows[windowCount-1].addSubview(customView);
}

Answer 6

You can definitely add the view to your application’s window, and you can also add another window entirely. You can set its frame and level. The level could be UIWindowLevelAlert.