How to add dimmed background to a custom UIPopoverBackgroundView

Question

I am making custom popover by subclassing UIPopoverBackgroundView (using this tutorial) and presenting it by using UIPopoverController. Unfortunately as soon as I specify custom popoverBackgroundViewClass the native dimmed background disappears. Is there any way to leave the dimmed background when using custom UIPopoverBackgroundView? Any other solution that I can use to simulate native behaviour?

Answer 1

Not sure why this got down voted, it's a good question because when you implement a custom UIPopoverBackgroundView, the dimmed background doesn't get set. In researching this problem, I determined the best approach is to set it myself!

Just before creating the popover view, I create a "mask view" that will be added to the view before the popover. This code includes a nice fade in effect as well:

self.customPopoverMaskView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.bounds.size.width, self.view.bounds.size.height)];
    self.customPopoverMaskView.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
    self.customPopoverMaskView.alpha = 0.3f;

    [UIView transitionWithView:self.view
                      duration:0.3
                       options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                    animations:^ {
                        [self.view addSubview:self.customPopoverMaskView];
                    }
                    completion:nil];

And to remove the view, plug this into the method(s) that handle the popover view disappearing:

[UIView transitionWithView:self.view
                  duration:0.3
                   options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                animations:^ {
                    [self.customPopoverMaskView removeFromSuperview];
                }
                completion:nil];

Works well for me. Happy coding!

Aaron