Q&A

Q. Should I use sheets for non-alert purposes?

A. As their name implies, alerts should be used for small bits of information, generally in response to an event the user needs to be aware of. Sheets are larger and more configurable. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines contains information on when to use the various forms of modal alerting.

Q. Can you trigger an alert from a sheet and vice versa?

A. While it is possible to trigger alerts from within alerts, you generally want to avoid doing this. Apple’s guidelines specifically call out the chaining of multiple modal views as a bad practice.

Q. Can I use sheets to gather input?

A. Yes, sheets are just custom wrappers around views and provide a fairly efficient way for you to present a modal dialog into which your users can provide information. Just try and keep the input small and quick because the shorter period of time your alerts/sheets are visible the better.