Dismissing the Virtual Keyboard on iPhone

This post is a quick recipe for making the virtual keyboard go away on the iPhone SDK. There are two aspects to the problem: dismissing the keyboard when the user taps Done (easy, most resources describe this right) and dismissing the keyboard when the user taps the screen outside any control that can receive focus.

When the user taps Done
Go to Interface Builder, and connect the edit control's delegate outlet to your view controller (in most cases, that will be the File's Owner). If your delegate is different, follow the steps below making changes when appropriate.

In the view controller, use the following snippet:


That's it, you're done. Run the code in the simulator and confirm it works.

When the user taps outside the field
You might see some more complicated solutions elsewhere (like Apress' book). The solution below works without any UI changes. Add the snippet below in your view controller. The snippet belongs in the view's controller, even if your text field's delegate is another object.


Bonus: reacting to the user leaving the field
If you want to take an action when the user leaves a field (such as issuing a Web service request in the background), the approach below plays nice with the modifications described in this post:


This code belongs in the text field's delegate (most of the time, it is your view controller).

I hope this post makes your life a bit easier. Happy coding!