Dismissing UIAlertViews when entering background state

Question

Apple recommends dismissing any UIAlertViews/UIActionSheets when entering background state in iOS 4. This is to avoid any confusion on the user\'s part when he

Answer 1

I Have had solved this with the following code:

/* taken from the post above (Cédric)*/
- (void)checkViews:(NSArray *)subviews {
    Class AVClass = [UIAlertView class];
    Class ASClass = [UIActionSheet class];
    for (UIView * subview in subviews){
        NSLog(@"Class %@", [subview class]);
        if ([subview isKindOfClass:AVClass]){
            [(UIAlertView *)subview dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:[(UIAlertView *)subview cancelButtonIndex] animated:NO];
        } else if ([subview isKindOfClass:ASClass]){
            [(UIActionSheet *)subview dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:[(UIActionSheet *)subview cancelButtonIndex] animated:NO];
        } else {
            [self checkViews:subview.subviews];
        }
    }
}



/*go to background delegate*/
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
    for (UIWindow* window in [UIApplication sharedApplication].windows) {
        NSArray* subviews = window.subviews;
        [self checkViews:subviews];
    }
}

Answer 2

As someone mentioned in a comment: the accepted answer isn't the best/cleanest one since iOS 4.0 when we have blocks! Here's how I do it:

UIAlertView* alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Alert!" message:@"This alert will dismiss when application resigns active!" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alert show];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserverForName:UIApplicationWillResignActiveNotification object:nil queue:[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] usingBlock:^(NSNotification* notification){
        [alert dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:0 animated:NO];
    }];

Answer 3

UIAlertView was deprecated in iOS 8 in favor of the UIAlertController. Unfortunately, this proves to be a tricky problem because the accepted solution won't work, as Apple explicitly doesn't support subclassing UIAlertController:

The UIAlertController class is intended to be used as-is and does not support subclassing. The view hierarchy for this class is private and must not be modified.

My solution is to simply traverse the view controller tree and dismiss all UIAlertControllers that you find. You can enable this globally by creating an extension of UIApplication and then calling it in the AppDelegate applicationDidEnterBackground method.

Try this (in Swift):

extension UIApplication
{
    class func dismissOpenAlerts(base: UIViewController? = UIApplication.sharedApplication().keyWindow?.rootViewController)
    {
        //If it's an alert, dismiss it
        if let alertController = base as? UIAlertController
        {
            alertController.dismissViewControllerAnimated(false, completion: nil)
        }

        //Check all children
        if base != nil
        {
            for controller in base!.childViewControllers
            {
                if let alertController = controller as? UIAlertController
                {
                    alertController.dismissViewControllerAnimated(false, completion: nil)
                }
            }
        }

        //Traverse the view controller tree
        if let nav = base as? UINavigationController
        {
           dismissOpenAlerts(nav.visibleViewController)
        }
        else if let tab = base as? UITabBarController, let selected = tab.selectedViewController
        {
           dismissOpenAlerts(selected)
        }
        else if let presented = base?.presentedViewController
        {
           dismissOpenAlerts(presented)
        }
    }
}

And then in your AppDelegate:

func applicationDidEnterBackground(application: UIApplication)
{
    UIApplication.dismissOpenAlerts()
}

Answer 4

I have this on my TODO list, but my first instinct would be to listen out for the notifcation UIApplicationWillResignActiveNotification (see UIApplication) in the views where you have things like UIAlertView - here you can programmatically remove the alert view with:

(void)dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex animated:(BOOL)animated

The discussion for this method even suggests what it's for in iOS4!

In iPhone OS 4.0, you may want to call this method whenever your application moves to the background. An alert view is not dismissed automatically when an application moves to the background. This behavior differs from previous versions of the operating system, where they were canceled automatically when the application was terminated. Dismissing the alert view gives your application a chance to save changes or abort the operation and perform any necessary cleanup in case your application is terminated later.

Answer 5

The straightforward way is to hold a reference to the UIAlertView so you can dismiss it. Of course as petert mentioned you can do it with a Notification or use the delegate method on UIApplication

applicationWillResignActive:

does not always mean that you are going to the background. You will for example also receive that delegate call and notification (you get both) when the user gets a phone call or receives and SMS. So you have to decide what should happen if the user gets an SMS and presses cancel to stay in your app. You maybe want to make sure that your UIAlertView is still there.

So I would dismiss the UIAlertView and save the state in the delegate call when you really go into the background:

applicationDidEnterBackground:

Have a look at Session 105 - Adopting Multitasking on iOS4 of WWDC10 available for free at developer.apple.com. It gets interesting at 16:00 min

Check out this graphic to understand the different states of an application

Answer 6

A totally different approach is a recursive search.

Recursive function for your application delegate

- (void)checkViews:(NSArray *)subviews {
    Class AVClass = [UIAlertView class];
    Class ASClass = [UIActionSheet class];
    for (UIView * subview in subviews){
        if ([subview isKindOfClass:AVClass]){
            [(UIAlertView *)subview dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:[(UIAlertView *)subview cancelButtonIndex] animated:NO];
        } else if ([subview isKindOfClass:ASClass]){
            [(UIActionSheet *)subview dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:[(UIActionSheet *)subview cancelButtonIndex] animated:NO];
        } else {
            [self checkViews:subview.subviews];
        }
    }
}

Calling it from the applicationDidEnterBackground procedure

[self checkViews:application.windows];