How do I add these native iOS blue menu boxes to my apps?

Question

I would like to have these menus for various things in my apps, those that look like this:
Although this example image I took from Google shows it on the home screen, I want to use them in my apps, not outside. I don't really know what they are called and all my attempts to find code for this on Google has failed. I have extensions which makes these pop-up, like Milkman Game's Push Notification extension, but there's no code for using these in an app manually, only way to make them pop-up is if Urban Airship sends out a push notification message to the phone.
So, anyone know what the code would be to use these? Maybe an extension for just this sort of thing is needed as they are not included in Adobe Air. Only way I can think of is just faking it by just showing a vector/bitmap of this menu, but I don't want to do it that way.

Answer 1

Thanks for taking your time (once again) to reply, and sorry for the time it took for me to reply, but better late than never right
If you have all code in one place, you'll certainly have to search it with Ctrl+F to find the method you want. It's not very different if you have multiple classes.
Yup, like I've said before, all in one place so I simply just search for what I want to work with, having // here and there for faster finding. So it doesn't make it more conventient to have the code in multiple classes, even if I can maybe search through them all with Ctrl+H or whatever, as having the code in one place as I have now yelds these benefits over classes: way less code, less files, all code in one place (and more for other various reasons).
Even if you have it structured in sections using comments, it's looks pretty painful to me to scroll through such a big file (I know, because I've sometimes had to edit pretty long code files). Plus everything outside a method is in the global scope. It's pretty easy to mess up when all methods have access to all variables. That's what public/private/protected is for.
I know what these public/private/protected things are for, and with my way I don't have to use them and never have any conficts anyway. I have no need for them and using them doesn't make coding easier for me. I have my simple and conventient way of handling all my variables and functions without conflicts, it's all very easy to not mess up, no need for these extra things, and once again, using them just means more code and the use of as files which also is not needed.
Imports are still needed when coding in the Actions panel, as you said a few posts ago, where you were having problems importing with asterisk. Using other IDEs all imports are handled for you. And you can even add an import for a class under the cursor just by pressing Ctrl+1.
Yup, but only maybe 5% of the imports needed if using classes is needed when doing it my way, so way less code. It's very rarely I need to import something other than some nifty as files I'm using, like one for hitTesting. They are single as files so np to import, was a bit different with those in com.folder.folder.etc, usually that's easy and works straight away every time, but not this time, but I figured it out, still no good reason to code in classes as the benefits of what I'm doing outweighs the other way by tons, as mentioned above.
I also use the Flash IDE to create screens. I agree it's easier to do it in a WYSIWYG environment. But then I don't add any code to it, because it would be a nightmare to search code inside all those movieclips. The code belongs to separate AS classes, so there's good separation between code and design, and a graphic designer could edit the graphics without understanding a line of code.
I don't add code inside movieclips, that's not very efficient and structurised if having code everywhere, hence why I do it all in one frame. Sure, a lot of times it's much easier if I just have some code inside movieclips, but I always try to have it in one and the same place anyway, but sometimes I can get lazy . There is no problem editing the graphics on my apps, I can even import them if needed, then the graphic designer just have to update the outside pictures and not touch anything inside Flash or anywhere. If I'm using vectors I can just import them from an swf, so the graphics designer just have to change the graphics in that without touching the game or movieclips or code etc. So, for an outsider to fiddle with the graphics is no problem, only if I made it all inside my Flash app with code everywhere on frames inside movieclips etc, which is not very organized.
Well, I wrote the code like that for clarity, though maybe it was too many lines for such a simple piece of code, but I don't do it like that necessarily always. It depends on the length. If it's short, I do it in one line. If it's a lot of code, I prefer to break it in several lines for readability. I don't think less lines mean faster readability, but rather the opposite.
For example. What code do you think it's more readable?
This one? http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js
Or this one? http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js
They both do EXACTLY the same. The computer does not care
Ok, maybe the example is a bit extreme, but you get the point
Yup, like I said, it depends on the code if I would do something similar like you did or not, usually it's not needed and I do it as I showed earlier as it makes less code and still easy to read.
For the example: of course http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js looks way better and is a bad example . No one would ever code like that, not me anyway, I follow my auto-formatting style: (copy/paste from Flash Auto-Format settings section)
function f(x) {
  if (x <= 0) {
    return 1;
  } else {
    return x * f(x - 1);
As that's the one I find best. Each thing has its own place. It's no problem getting fewer rows of code, but it has to look good and be structurized and not have tons of scrolling to the far left, like in your "bad" example . Eventhough http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js looks way better than the other one (of course), I would have done it a bit differently resulting in fewer rows, less code and still keeping my standard formatting of things.
You're missing a lot of features this way. Just one example. You can create your own button class, with your own features, event listeners automatically added when added to stage and removed when removed from stage, a property that sets the text, pressed states, etc. And then you don't have to do that again ever in your app. Instead, now you have to add and remove event listeners each time you have to add a button. And this is just a tiny example. For more complex stuff, it would save even more time.
You're just throwing away decades of programming, created by great minds, much better than you and me (combined ), just because you don't want to learn to do it the right way. And I'm by no means a great programmer. But still, I think you're shooting yourself in the foot by coding that way.
No need to create button classes when I do it right on the "canvas?". I know I can do them dynamically and for that I don't need classes. I just make my buttons in Flash and then remove/add listeners to them as needed, np, tons less code. If I would need to be able to remove the entire button, to maybe save memory or whatever, then I could just create them with code, but it's not needed and creating them with code as you mentioned above doesn't need classes, but that's what it sounds like it does if I read your text correctly. I can do what you mentioned above without classes and less code. Even if I couldn't do exactly as you said, the way I can do it now is more than enough anyway, full control over what I need to do and it's less code and less complex.
Yup, decades of programming by pros (and I'm far from being one, but I'm pretty good anyway, good enough for what I need to do and I like challenges when they arrive, coding ftw ), but that doesn't matter, because why do it the "right" way when my way suits me better as I get soooo many benefits from doing it my own way. I have yet to see any real benefits/advantages in doing it any other way than I'm doing right now, which sort of saddens me a bit , as I want to do it the right way, IF I found it make things faster, easier, more structurized etc etc etc, but it doesn't.
You need just a few steps to get any of those IDEs working. Not something terribly difficult. Just download FDT Free, the Flex SDK and the latest AIR SDK. Unzip the Flex SDK in a folder, then unzip the AIR SDK in the same folder, overwriting files where needed. Then just configure FDT so it points to the Flex+AIR SDK folder. Finally, create a project and start experimenting . It has pretty good documentation to get started:
Settings things up are no problem, but it's no use when it clearly doesn't make things "better" for me.
OOP makes a lot of sense when working in teams. Having everyone working in the same single long sheet of code as you're doing now would be unthinkable. And here's where all those "private/public" thingies come into play. You create your class and the other developer leverages your class using only its public methods and properties. They don't need to know about the exact internals of the class, just the exposed methods and properties you chose to make public. That's how it works.
I know, and that's what I've said , but I won't change my way of doing things as I'm a solo coder anyway, but like I said earlier (sort of), it would be nice knowing I could work with others if I just coded correctly. Changing my ways to the "right" way have too few benefits to me, and even if I did change my way, it would result in me having to learn a lot of new things, getting into a lot of problems etc till I know how it all works. What I mean is if I use the right way, I could get lots of problems where I'm not quite sure what's causing them, as I'm then using as files instead, with new code I've not needed before, problems with variables if I don't set the private/public etc right and stuff. Not worth it as I would be backtracked and have to relearn things. Now if I have a bug or problem, I can usually fix it very fast as I understand it all perfectly now (years of experience), but changing to the new way would add many new variables and take me time to solve problems (depending on what they are) as things have changed. But like I said, doing that has no real benefits to me anyway so I'm staying my my old ways.
By that description (getting a notification after you quit the app), I think what you need are Push Notifications, which were added to AIR in version 3.4. You don't need a native extension for that. Take a look here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/ios-push-notifications.html
If you just want notifications INSIDE your app, you can still use the NativeAlert / NativeDialogs extension to display the messages, and use getTimer() to get the time before and after (i.e: you get the value of getTimer() when you want to start counting, and then you get it again from time to time to check if enough time has passed. Not sure if the Timer class (as opposed to the getTimer() method) can do that as well while the app is inactive.
Well, I hope any of this helped a bit
I have Push Notifications (bought from Milkman Games) and it works, but only receiving them when sent from the Urban Airship (I can recieve them anywhere, even if the app is off). It didn't work like I was hoping, which is what I said in my earlier post. I wanted something that could send a Push Notification or some sort of alert message to the user when a certain time has passed, can't seem to do that with the Push Notification from Milkman Game. I know the consept and how to use the getTimer() of course, but it doesn't help me. Here's a scenario I would like to be able to do:
* Player builds somehing, 1 hour remains till it's done, so the leave/quit the app
* One hour has gone and a notification pops up telling the user that whatever they built in the app is now ready
* The user starts the app and the thingy has been done
I now have the Native Alert and Milkman Games extensions working, but none of these can do what I want. Of course I would use a getTimer() to check the time they start building the thingy, store it on the phone in one of those shared object files, then when the user returns, it checks if enough time has gone since he started building it as the starting time was stored and I can check current time either from their phone or the internet (internet is more secure or they can cheat, which I have in some games by chaning the iphone time). So, no problem there, the problem is how I can alert them about these things outside the app. Only way I can think of is if maybe they have to log into an account on a server I host which receives their timer stuff, so if the app is off and 1 hour has gone by, the server will send out a message to urban airship and tell it to send a notification to the user.... bleh... But that's not how other people have done it as I don't have to be logged into anything to recieve these things.
So, unfortunately, there are still not even close to enough benefits for me to change my ways. Changing it to the "right" way would still just mean all the things mentioned before: more files, more code, more complications as I have to relearn things which will result in problems I can't that easily fix, unlike now as I understand everything...
edit/ps: I haven't proof-read anything above, no idea if I explained myself properly or if there's tons of spelling errors, I just wrote away, posted and now I'm off, bit in a hurry....