How to correctly use ABPersonViewController with ABPeoplePickerNavigationController to view Contact information?

Question

Update 9/2/10: This code no longer works as of the iOS 4 update--it fails with an internal assertion. There is now a great Address Book API example available in the iPhone SDK Reference Library called "QuickContacts."

The example code is available here; it will help you solve this problem: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/QuickContacts/Introduction/Intro.html

---

I'm attempting to add a feature to my app that allows the user to select a contact from an ABPeoplePickerNavigationController, which then displays an ABPersonViewController corresponding to the contact they picked. At that point, I want the user to be able to click on a contact's phone number and have my app respond with custom behavior.

I've got the ABPeoplePickerNavigationController working fine, but I'm running into a problem displaying the ABPersonViewController. I can get the ABPersonViewController to animate onto the screen just fine, but it only displays the contact's photo, name, and company name. None of the contact's other fields are displayed.

I'm using the 'displayedProperties' element in the ABPersonViewController to tell the program to display phone numbers. This creates some strange behavior; when I select a contact that has no phone numbers assigned, the contact shows up with "No Phone Numbers" written in the background (as you'd expect), but when selecting a contact that does have a phone number, all I get is a blank contact page (without the "No Phone Numbers" text).

Here's the method in my ABPeoplePickerNavigationController delegate class that I'm using to create my PersonViewController class, which implements the ABPersonViewController interface:

- (BOOL) peoplePickerNavigationController:(ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson:(ABRecordRef)person {

    BOOL returnState = NO;

    PersonViewController *personView = [[PersonViewController alloc] init];
    [personView displayContactInfo:person];

    [peoplePicker pushViewController:personView animated:YES];

    [personView release];

    return returnState;
}

Here's my PersonViewController.h header file:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <AddressBookUI/AddressBookUI.h>

@interface PersonViewController : UIViewController <ABPersonViewControllerDelegate> 
{

}

- (void) displayContactInfo: (ABRecordRef)person;

@end

Finally, here's my PersonViewController.m that's creating the ABPersonViewController to view the selected contact:

#import "PersonViewController.h"

@implementation PersonViewController

- (void) displayContactInfo: (ABRecordRef)person
{
    ABPersonViewController *personController = [[ABPersonViewController alloc] init];

    personController.personViewDelegate = self;
    personController.allowsEditing = NO;
    personController.displayedPerson = person;
    personController.addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();

    personController.displayedProperties = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
            [NSNumber numberWithInt:kABPersonPhoneProperty], 
            nil];

    [self setView:personController.view];

    [[self navigationController] pushViewController:personController animated:YES];
    [personController release];
}

- (BOOL) personViewController:(ABPersonViewController*)personView shouldPerformDefaultActionForPerson:(ABRecordRef)person property:(ABPropertyID)property identifier:(ABMultiValueIdentifier)identifierForValue
{
    return YES;
}


@end

Does anyone have any idea as to why I'm seeing this blank Contact screen instead of one with clickable phone number fields?

---

Alright, I think I'm getting closer to finding the problem. I'm fairly sure it's with this part of the displayContactInfo call above:

[self setView:personController.view];

When I omit this line, all I see is a blank screen when I click a contact. The ABPeoplePickerNavigationController is pushing the PersonViewController onto the NavigationController stack. The PersonViewController then instantiates an ABPersonViewController object, but for whatever reason the ABPersonViewController never gets properly added to the NavigationController stack.

Does anyone know how to add the ABPersonViewController to the stack, rather than just the PersonViewController?

Answer 1

Just a heads-up to anyone who runs into this problem themselves: I was able to product the correct behavior by instantiating the ABPersonViewController in its delegate's viewDidLoad() method as below:

As before, here's my ABPeoplePickerNavigationController delegate's method:

- (BOOL) peoplePickerNavigationController:(ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson:(ABRecordRef)person
{
    BOOL returnState = NO;

    PersonViewController *personView = [[PersonViewController alloc] init];

    [peoplePicker pushViewController:personView animated:YES];
    [personView displayContactInfo:person];

    [personView release];

    return returnState;
}

Here's my PersonViewController.h (ABPersonViewController delegate) header file:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <AddressBookUI/AddressBookUI.h>

@interface PersonViewController : UIViewController <ABPersonViewControllerDelegate> 
{
    ABPersonViewController *personController;
}

- (void) displayContactInfo: (ABRecordRef)person;

@end

Finally, here's the delegate's implementation (PersonViewController.m):

#import "PersonViewController.h"

@implementation PersonViewController

- (void) viewDidLoad
{
}

- (void) viewDidUnload
{
    [personController release];
}

- (void) displayContactInfo: (ABRecordRef)person
{
    personController = [[ABPersonViewController alloc] init];
    [personController setDisplayedPerson:person];
    [personController setPersonViewDelegate:self];
    [personController setAllowsEditing:NO];
    personController.addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();   

    personController.displayedProperties = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
        [NSNumber numberWithInt:kABPersonPhoneProperty], 
        nil];

    [self setView:personController.view];
}

- (BOOL) personViewController:(ABPersonViewController*)personView shouldPerformDefaultActionForPerson:(ABRecordRef)person property:(ABPropertyID)property identifier:(ABMultiValueIdentifier)identifierForValue
{
    // This is where you pass the selected contact property elsewhere in your program
    [[self navigationController] dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
    return NO;
}

@end

Hopefully this ends up being helpful for someone. The AddressBook UI framework was a bit tricky for me to wrap my head around (although I'm new to iPhone development so I'm still learning a lot of the nuances of iPhone program organization).