disabling textFields.

You can certainly setEnabled:NO on fields... but this really isn't what you want. (The docs for this is UIControl, since UITextField inherits from that)

But anyway, back to why you don't want to do that. You actually DO want to allow the user to make any changes they want to any text view and then accept what they entered last as their entry (because... that's what the user did and what they want, so why would you prevent them from doing this?)

Make sense?

 

No, it would just make your code work, and would frustrate your users. On the iPhone/iPad, a user's tolerance for restriction is next to zero. If you frustrate your users by forcing them to unnaturally have to hit return they'll just abandon your app.

Really you need to correct the short-falling in your code.

 

multiple text fields

Just wanted to confirm that if you want users to be able to move across multiple text fields making entries without touching done/return on the keyboard it can be done but I'm not using a tableview. I have a todo list in a scrollview with 30 entries which users can freely type into and then move to another field without dismissing the keyboard. - (BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn: saves away any entry and I don't lose any content.

 

I think a better solution in your code would be making it so that the text fields have a delegate set up to respond whenever the text changes, not just when the return key is hit.

If you insist on not allowing the user to change multiple fields at once, another solution could be making a modal view that pops up when they tap the field and the modal view is where they make the changes.

I don't endorse the second possibility I suggest at all. I've seen apps that do this before, and they annoy me a good deal, but at least it's something that has been done before and so would seem more natural to users than having all the other text fields disabled until they hit return on the one they've already selected.

 

What you're missing is that these methods are not invoked the way you think they should. You think that when you switch fields it will send you something and it doesn't. Think instead of implementing textField:shouldChangeCharactersInRange:replacementString: to track changes the user makes to the various fields and textFieldDidEndEditing for when they're done. The majority of the work is done by the former method.

(You may get a textFieldShouldBeginEditing: when the user switches among textFields, but I'm not sure)