UIPopoverController for iphone not working?

Question

I need to use a UIPopOverController for my iPhone app ,i searched stackoverflow someone said UIPopoverController does not run on iphone iphone device WHY?.when i run on iphone device i got this error reason: '-[UIPopoverController initWithContentViewController:] called when not running under UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad.'

 -(void)btnSetRemainderTapped:(UIButton *)button
{
   setReminderView =[[SetRemainderView alloc]initWithNibName:@"SetRemainderView" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];
setReminderView.contentSizeForViewInPopover = CGSizeMake(setReminderView.view.frame.size.width, setReminderView.view.frame.size.height);
setReminderView.delegate = self;
popOverController = [[UIPopoverController alloc]
                      initWithContentViewController:setReminderView] ;
 CGRect rect = CGRectMake(self.view.frame.size.width/2, self.view.frame.size.height/2, 1, 1);
[popOverController presentPopoverFromRect:rect
                                        inView:self.view
                      permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny
                                      animated:YES];
}

can any one help me?

Answer 1

You CAN use popoverController in iPhone apps.

1. Create a category

// UIPopoverController+iPhone.h file
@interface UIPopoverController (iPhone)
+ (BOOL)_popoversDisabled;
@end

// UIPopoverController+iPhone.m file
@implementation UIPopoverController (iPhone)
+ (BOOL)_popoversDisabled {
    return NO; 
} 
@end

2. Import it to your class and use popover in iPhone as usual.

But remember that this is private method and Apple can reject your app. But I know people who use this normally and Apple published their apps.

Answer 2

Edit: As stated by Soberman, since iOS 8 it is possible to present popovers on iPhone using public APIs, so this answer is probably not relevant anymore.

---

As stated in Apple's documentation on UIPopoverController:

Popover controllers are for use exclusively on iPad devices.

So there is no way to use this class in iPhone application unfortunately. But there are a couple of custom third-party implementations of the functionality provided by UIPopoverController which add iPhone support and more. See https://github.com/50pixels/FPPopover for example.

Edit: There also is another highly customizable popover implementation for both iPhone/iPad worth checking out: https://github.com/nicolaschengdev/WYPopoverController.

Answer 3

Since iOS8 we are now able to create popovers, that will be the same on iPhone, as on iPad, which would be especially awesome for those who make universal apps, thus no need to make separate views or code.

You can get the class as well as demo project here: https://github.com/soberman/ARSPopover

All you need to do is subclass UIViewController, conform to the UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate protocol and set desired modalPresentationStyle along with the delegate value:

// This is your CustomPopoverController.m

@interface CustomPopoverController () <UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate>

@end

@implementation CustomPopoverController.m

- (instancetype)init {
    if (self = [super init]) {
        self.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationPopover;
        self.popoverPresentationController.delegate = self;
    }
    return self;
}

- (UIModalPresentationStyle)adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController:(UIPresentationController *)controller {
    return UIModalPresentationNone; //You have to specify this particular value in order to make it work on iPhone.
}

Afterwards, instantiate your newly created subclass in the method from which you want to show it and assign two more values to sourceView and sourceRect. It looks like this:

CustomPopoverController *popoverController = [[CustomPopoverController alloc] init];
popoverController.popoverPresentationController.sourceView = sourceView; //The view containing the anchor rectangle for the popover.
popoverController.popoverPresentationController.sourceRect = CGRectMake(384, 40, 0, 0); //The rectangle in the specified view in which to anchor the popover.
[self presentViewController:popoverController animated:YES completion:nil];

And there you have it, nice, neat blurred popover.

Answer 4

So @Sobermans answer didn't really solve the issue from start to finish for me so I want to detail how I got it done using the docs. That being said I do like the idea of using your own presentation controller subclass to manage all of the customisation you want to exhibit.

1. Create your controller to present

The first step is instantiating the controller you want to present:

let vc: UIViewController = ...
vc.modalPresentationStyle = .Popover
vc.preferredContentSize = CGSize(width: CGRectGetWidth(view.bounds)/2, height: 100)

Now we have a controller with the popover presentation style and an arbitrary content size.

2. Implement adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController

By default UIPopoverPresentationController will present on full screen on iPhone so to prevent this behaviour you need to force the adaptive presentation style to none.

First we set the delegate of the popover presentation controller

vc.popoverPresentationController.delegate = self;

Then we implement UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate

func adaptivePresentationStyleForPresentationController(controller: UIPresentationController) -> UIModalPresentationStyle {
    return .None;
}

3. Present and configure popup

First we need to call presentViewController and only after that can we configure the popover:

presentViewController(vc, animated:true, completion:nil)
if let popover = vc.popoverPresentationController {
    popover.permittedArrowDirections = .Right | .Left
    popover.sourceView = button
    popover.sourceRect = button.bounds
}

Answer 5

Use a custom popover controller, such as:

https://github.com/sammcewan/WYPopoverController

(this seems to be the best supported one that I have found).

Answer 6

I ended up creating my custom tooltip/popover class.

Can be initalised with any content view and dynamically adjusts it's frame.

Hope it helps.

https://github.com/akeara/AKETooltip

Answer 7

If you want to do it in Swift, I believe the code is the following:

extension UIPopoverController {
    class var _popoversDisabled : Bool {
    get { return false }
    }
}

Edit: It is working in Xcode 6 beta 4 on iPhone with iOs7.1

Answer 8

This is a really interesting (and depressing) thread to read. I can't believe Apple prevents popup dialogs on iPhones, with absolutely no justification.

And, it's true, on iOS 8, if you try to work around this limitation, it'll make your popups appear as a full-screen modal dialog.

The following excellent webpage describes "How Apple Cheats" to let its own iBooks and iTunes apps break its own rules, and allow popups - but just from within their own iPhone apps.

HowAppleCheats

Have a read (warning: it'll make you hate Apple & XCode even more..)

Want to get around the "UIPopoverController called when not running under UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad" error on iOS 8 ?

Simple.

Just go into your .plist file, and change the Bundle ID to "com.apple.itunesu" to make XCode think that your app is actually iTunes.

Then your popup will work fine.

(Sigh.)

The alternative way of doing this is to directly add your UIViewController to your screen.

In this example, I wanted a "helper screen" to appear on top of my iPhone screen. It's a UIViewController, it is stored in it's own .xib file, and it has a few lines to add a pretty border:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    // Give our popup a pretty curved border
    self.view.layer.borderColor = [[UIColor blueColor] CGColor];
    self.view.layer.borderWidth = 1.0;
    self.view.layer.cornerRadius = 8;    
}

To display it, I simply create an instance of this UIViewController, add it to my screen, then center it:

-(void)showHelperScreen
{
    if (self.helperScreen == nil)
    {
        //  Add the popup UIViewController to our screen
        self.helperScreen = [[HelperViewController alloc] init];
        [self.view addSubview:self.helperScreen.view];
    }

    //  Center the popup in the middle of the screen
    CGSize screenSize = [[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame].size;
    self.helperScreen.view.center = CGPointMake(screenSize.width/2, screenSize.height/2);
}

Of course, I also needed to add some code to make the popup disappear when the user taps outside of it, but this does at least show that you can (safely) display popups on an iPhone, even if your app isn't specifically called iTunes or iBook.

Voila.

Hope this helps, and if anyone needs me, I'll be back in my safe, happy place (Visual Studio, in other words).