Talking Directly to Your User Through Alerts

Alerts speak to your user. Members of the UIAlertView and UIActionSheet classes pop up or scroll in above other views to deliver their messages. These lightweight classes add two-way dialog to your apps. Alerts visually “speak” to users and can prompt them to reply. You present your alert onscreen, get user acknowledgment, and then dismiss the alert to move on with other tasks.

If you think that alerts are nothing more than messages with an attached OK button, think again. Alert objects provide incredible versatility. With alert sheets, you can actually build menus, text input, make queries, and more. In this chapter’s recipes, you see how to create a wide range of useful alerts that you can use in your own programs.