Recipe: Picking People

The AddressBookUI framework offers a people picker controller, which lets you browse your entire contacts list. It works similarly to the individual contact screen, but does not require an a priori contact selection. The ABPeoplePickerNavigationController class presents the interactive browser shown in Figure 17-4.

Figure 17-4 The iPhone people picker navigation control enables users to search through the contacts database and select a person or organization.

Allocate and display the controller before presenting it modally. Make sure to set the peoplePickerDelegate property, which allows you to catch user interactions with the view.

- (void) action: (UIBarButtonItem *) bbi
{
    ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *ppnc =
        [[ABPeoplePickerNavigationController alloc] init];
    ppnc.peoplePickerDelegate = self;
    [self presentModalViewController:ppnc animated:YES];
}