Question

In the clocks application, the timer screen shows a picker (probably a UIPicker in UIDatePickerModeCountDownTimer mode) with some text in the selection bar (‘hours’ and ‘mins’ in this case).

(edit) Note that these labels are fixed: They don’t move when the picker wheel is rolling.

Is there a way to show such fixed labels in the selection bar of a standard UIPickerView component?

I did not find any API that would help with that. A suggestion was to add a UILabel as a subview of the picker, but that didn’t work.

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Answer

I followed Ed Marty’s advice (answer below), and it works! Not perfect but it should fool people. For reference, here’s my implementation, feel free to make it better…

- (void)viewDidLoad {     // Add pickerView     self.pickerView = [[UIPickerView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];     [pickerView release];     CGSize pickerSize = [pickerView sizeThatFits:CGSizeZero];     CGRect screenRect = [[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame];     #define toolbarHeight           40.0     CGFloat pickerTop = screenRect.size.height - toolbarHeight - pickerSize.height;     CGRect pickerRect = CGRectMake(0.0, pickerTop, pickerSize.width, pickerSize.height);     pickerView.frame = pickerRect;      // Add label on top of pickerView     CGFloat top = pickerTop + 2;     CGFloat height = pickerSize.height - 2;     [self addPickerLabel:@'x' rightX:123.0 top:top height:height];     [self addPickerLabel:@'y' rightX:183.0 top:top height:height];     //... }  - (void)addPickerLabel:(NSString *)labelString rightX:(CGFloat)rightX top:(CGFloat)top height:(CGFloat)height { #define PICKER_LABEL_FONT_SIZE 18 #define PICKER_LABEL_ALPHA 0.7     UIFont *font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:PICKER_LABEL_FONT_SIZE];     CGFloat x = rightX - [labelString sizeWithFont:font].width;      // White label 1 pixel below, to simulate embossing.     UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(x, top + 1, rightX, height)];     label.text = labelString;     label.font = font;     label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];     label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];     label.opaque = NO;     label.alpha = PICKER_LABEL_ALPHA;     [self.view addSubview:label];     [label release];      // Actual label.     label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(x, top, rightX, height)];     label.text = labelString;     label.font = font;     label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];     label.opaque = NO;     label.alpha = PICKER_LABEL_ALPHA;     [self.view addSubview:label];     [label release]; } 

Answer 1

Create your picker, create a label with a shadow, and push it to a picker’s subview below the selectionIndicator view.

It would look something like this

 UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(135, 93, 80, 30)] autorelease]; label.text = @'Label'; label.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:20]; label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor]; label.shadowColor = [UIColor whiteColor]; label.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake (0,1); [picker insertSubview:label aboveSubview:[picker.subviews objectAtIndex:5]];  //When you have multiple components (sections)... //you will need to find which subview you need to actually get under //so experiment with that 'objectAtIndex:5' // //you can do something like the following to find the view to get on top of // define @class UIPickerTable; // NSMutableArray *tables = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; // for (id i in picker.subviews) if([i isKindOfClass:[UIPickerTable class]]) [tables addObject:i]; // etc...  

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