ios - present UIAlertController on top of everythi

Question

I'm trying to have an helper class that presents an UIAlertController. Since it's a helper class, I want it to work regardless of the view hierarchy, and with no information about it. I'm able to show the alert, but when it's being dismissed, the app crashed with:

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException',
reason: 'Trying to dismiss UIAlertController <UIAlertController: 0x135d70d80>
 with unknown presenter.'

I'm creating the popup with:

guard let window = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow else { return }
let view = UIView()
view.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
window.insertSubview(view, at: 0)
window.bringSubview(toFront: view)
// add full screen constraints to view ...

let controller = UIAlertController(
  title: "confirm deletion?",
  message: ":)",
  preferredStyle: .alert
)

let deleteAction = UIAlertAction(
  title: "yes",
  style: .destructive,
  handler: { _ in
    DispatchQueue.main.async {
      view.removeFromSuperview()
      completion()
    }
  }
)
controller.addAction(deleteAction)

view.insertSubview(controller.view, at: 0)
view.bringSubview(toFront: controller.view)
// add centering constraints to controller.view ...

When I tap yes, the app will crash and the handler is not being hit before the crash. I can't present the UIAlertController because this would be dependent of the current view hierarchy, while I want the popup to be independant

EDIT: Swift solution Thanks @Vlad for the idea. It seems that operating in a separate window is much more simple. So here is a working Swift solution:

class Popup {
  private var alertWindow: UIWindow
  static var shared = Popup()

  init() {
    alertWindow = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
    alertWindow.rootViewController = UIViewController()
    alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1
    alertWindow.makeKeyAndVisible()
    alertWindow.isHidden = true
  }

  private func show(completion: @escaping ((Bool) -> Void)) {
    let controller = UIAlertController(
      title: "Want to do it?",
      message: "message",
      preferredStyle: .alert
    )

    let yesAction = UIAlertAction(
      title: "Yes",
      style: .default,
      handler: { _ in
        DispatchQueue.main.async {
          self.alertWindow.isHidden = true
          completion(true)
        }
    })

    let noAction = UIAlertAction(
      title: "Not now",
      style: .destructive,
      handler: { _ in
        DispatchQueue.main.async {
          self.alertWindow.isHidden = true
          completion(false)
        }
    })

    controller.addAction(noAction)
    controller.addAction(yesAction)
    self.alertWindow.isHidden = false
    alertWindow.rootViewController?.present(controller, animated: false)
  }
}

Answer 1

in Swift 4.1 and Xcode 9.4.1

I'm calling alert function from my shared class

//This is my shared class
import UIKit

class SharedClass: NSObject {

static let sharedInstance = SharedClass()
    //This is alert function
    func alertWindow(title: String, message: String) {
        let alertWindow = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
        alertWindow.rootViewController = UIViewController()
        alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1

        let alert2 = UIAlertController(title: title, message: message, preferredStyle: .alert)
        let defaultAction2 = UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .default, handler: { action in
        })
        alert2.addAction(defaultAction2)

        alertWindow.makeKeyAndVisible()
        alertWindow.rootViewController?.present(alert2, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
    private override init() {
    }
}

I'm calling this alert function in my required view controller like this.

//I'm calling this function into my second view controller
SharedClass.sharedInstance.alertWindow(title:"Title message here", message:"Description message here")

Answer 2

Swift 3 example

let alertWindow = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
alertWindow.rootViewController = UIViewController()
alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "AlertController Tutorial", message: "Submit something", preferredStyle: .alert)

alertWindow.makeKeyAndVisible()
alertWindow.rootViewController?.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

Answer 3

 func windowErrorAlert(message:String){
    let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Error", message: message, preferredStyle: .alert)
    let window = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
    window.rootViewController = UIViewController()
    let okAction = UIAlertAction(title: "Ok", style: .default) { (action) -> Void in
        alert.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
        window.resignKey()
        window.isHidden = true
        window.removeFromSuperview()
        window.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert - 1
        window.setNeedsLayout()
    }

    alert.addAction(okAction)
    window.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1
    window.makeKeyAndVisible()

    window.rootViewController?.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Create a UIAlertController on top of all view and also dismiss and give focus back to your rootViewController.

Answer 4

Here's a Swift 3 extension for it:

public extension UIAlertController {
    func show() {
        let win = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
        let vc = UIViewController()
        vc.view.backgroundColor = .clear
        win.rootViewController = vc
        win.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1
        win.makeKeyAndVisible()    
        vc.present(self, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Just setup your UIAlertController, and then call:

alert.show()

No more bound by the View Controllers hierarchy!

Answer 5

I will rather present it on UIApplication.shared.keyWindow.rootViewController, instead of using your logic. So you can do next:

UIApplication.shared.keyWindow.rootViewController.presentController(yourAlert, animated: true, completion: nil)

EDITED:

I have an old ObjC category, where I've used the next method show, which I used, if no controller was provided to present from:

- (void)show
{
    self.alertWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame: [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
    self.alertWindow.rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
    self.alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1;
    [self.alertWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
    [self.alertWindow.rootViewController presentViewController: self animated: YES completion: nil];
}

added entire category, if somebody need it

#import "UIAlertController+ShortMessage.h"
#import <objc/runtime.h>

@interface UIAlertController ()
@property (nonatomic, strong) UIWindow* alertWindow;
@end

@implementation UIAlertController (ShortMessage)

- (void)setAlertWindow: (UIWindow*)alertWindow
{
    objc_setAssociatedObject(self, @selector(alertWindow), alertWindow, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC);
}

- (UIWindow*)alertWindow
{
    return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, @selector(alertWindow));
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showShortMessage: (NSString*)message fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: nil shortMessage: message fromController: controller];
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithTitle: (NSString*)title shortMessage: (NSString*)message fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: title shortMessage: message actions: @[[UIAlertAction actionWithTitle: @"Ok" style: UIAlertActionStyleDefault handler: nil]] fromController: controller];
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithTitle: (NSString*)title shortMessage: (NSString*)message actions: (NSArray<UIAlertAction*>*)actions fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    UIAlertController* alert = [UIAlertController alertControllerWithTitle: title
                                                    message: message
                                             preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyleAlert];

    for (UIAlertAction* action in actions)
    {
        [alert addAction: action];
    }

    if (controller)
    {
        [controller presentViewController: alert animated: YES completion: nil];
    }
    else
    {
        [alert show];
    }

    return alert;
}

+ (UIAlertController*)showAlertWithMessage: (NSString*)message actions: (NSArray<UIAlertAction*>*)actions fromController: (UIViewController*)controller
{
    return [self showAlertWithTitle: @"" shortMessage: message actions: actions fromController: controller];
}

- (void)show
{
    self.alertWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame: [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
    self.alertWindow.rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
    self.alertWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelAlert + 1;
    [self.alertWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
    [self.alertWindow.rootViewController presentViewController: self animated: YES completion: nil];
}

@end