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UILabel and UITextView offer unsatisfying support for text selection.
Existing solutions like TTTAttributedLabel are great but offer a somewhat limited API for text selection.
- Text Selection
- Text Expansion
- Customization
- Prewritten Selection Validators
- Interface Builder
- Scrolling
Add the following to your Podfile
pod 'SelectableTextView', '~> 1.0.2'Add the following to your Cartfile
github "jhurray/SelectableTextView" ~> 1.0.2Clone the repo and manually add the Files in /SelectableTextView
import SelectableTextView
let textView = SelectableTextView()
textView.text = "Hello World!"
textView.truncationMode = .truncateTail
textView.alignment = .center
textView.numberOfLines = 1
let greetingValidator = MatchesTextValidator(text: "hello")
textView.registerValidator(_ validator: greetingValidator) { (validText, validator) in
// Handle selection of "Hello"
}
let exclamationValidator = SuffixValidator(suffix: "!")
textView.registerValidator(_ validator: exclamationValidator) { (validText, validator) in
// Handle selection of "World!"
}To create selectable text, you have to create and register a validator. The validator must conform to the TextSelectionValidator protocol.
let hashtagValidator = PrefixValidator(prefix: "#")
textView.registerValidator(validator: hashtagValidator) { (validText, validator) in
// Handle selection of hashtag
}You can unregister a validator at any time.
textView.removeValidator(validator: hashtagValidator)Here is a resource for creating custom validators using the TextSelectionValidator protocol.
There are other more specific protocols that make customization easier like ContainerTextSelectionValidator and CompositeTextSelectionValidator.
There are a few prewritten validators supplied. These can be used as they are, as building blocks for other more complex validators, and as examples on how to build custom validators.
MatchesTextValidator(text: String, caseSensitive: Bool = false)
ContainsTextValidator(text: String, caseSensitive: Bool = false)
PrefixValidator(text: String, caseSensitive: Bool = false)
SuffixValidator(text: String, caseSensitive: Bool = false)
HashtagTextValidator()
AtSymbolTagTextValidator()
QuotationsTextValidator()
HandlebarsValidator(searchableText: String, replacementText: String)ReverseValidator(validator: TextSelectionValidator)
ContainerValidator(validator: TextSelectionValidator, selectionAttributes: [String: Any]? = nil)
CompositeValidator(validators: [TextSelectionValidator], selectionAttributes: [String: Any]? = nil)LinkValidator() // Validates any link (HTTP, HTTPS, file, etc...)
HTTPLinkValidator() // Validates HTTP and HTTPS links
UnsafeLinkValidator() // Validates HTTP links
HTTPSLinkValidator()
CustomLinkValidator(urlString: String!, replacementText: String? = nil) Customization is possible using the LinkValidatorAttributes protocol. Example here.
RegexValidator(pattern: String, options: NSRegularExpression.Options = .caseInsensitive)
EmailValidator()
PhoneNumberValidator()
You can add a text expansion button with the following method:
public func addExpansionButton(collapsedState: (text: String, lines: Int), expandedState: (text: String, lines: Int), attributes: [String: Any]? = nil)You can remove the expansion button using the following method:
public func removeExpansionButton(numberOfLines: Int = 1)Example:
let attributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: purple]
textView.addExpansionButton(collapsedState: ("More...", 2),
expandedState: ("Less", 0),
attributes: attributes)
...
textView.removeExpansionButton(numberOfLines: 2)You can customize the background color of the expansion button using the SelectedBackgroundColorAttribute property HighlightedTextSelectionAttributes struct as an attribute key.
let attributes: [String: Any] = [HighlightedTextSelectionAttributes.SelectedBackgroundColorAttribute : UIColor.purple]- Sets the content of the text view
- Type:
String?
- Sets the font of the text view
- Type:
UIFont - Defaults to
UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 17)
- Sets the default text color
- Type:
UIColor - Defaults to
UIColor.darkText
- Overrides the
textandtextColorwith the attributed text - Type:
NSAttributedString? - Defaults to
nil
- Alignment of text in the text view
- Type:
TextAlignment - Supports 3 types:
.left,.right,.center - Defaults to
.left
- Determines how the text view handles new lines
- Type:
LineBreakMode - Supports 1 type:
.wordWrap -
- Defaults to
. wordWrap
- Defaults to
- See Goals
- Determines the bahavior of the last word in the last line of the text view
- Type:
TruncationMode - Supports 2 types:
.clipping,.truncateTail - Defaults to
.clipping - See Goals
- Determines the number of lines in the text view
- Type:
Int - Defaults to
0 - 0 lines means unbounded, similar to
UILabel
- Determines the spacing between lines
- Type:
CGFloat - Defaults to
0 - Supports negative values
- Sets the content inset of the text view
- Type:
UIEdgeInsets - Defaults to
UIEdgeInsets.zero
- Sets the default selection attributes for selectable text
- Type:
[String : AnyObject]? - Defaults:
color=tintColor,font=boldSystemFont(ofSize: font.pointSize + 2)
- Tracks the state of the expansion button
- Type:
Bool? - Defaults to
nil. Will only return a value if the expansion button is added - If the expansion button is added, this property will toggle the state
- Readonly, returns the size of the text content
- Type:
CGSize
- Determines if selection is enabled for the text view
- Type:
Bool - Defaults to
true
- Determines if scrolling is enabled for the text view
- Type:
Bool - Defaults to
false
- Forwards scrolling events fron the text view
- Type:
SelectableTextViewDelegate?
- Delegates work for the text view
- Type:
SelectableTextViewScrollDelegate?
- New Line
\n - Tab
\t - Null Terminator
\0
If you want to have text next to to a selectabe portion of text but still validate the text correctly, use the null terminator.
let text = "The period next to the #Hashtag\0. Will not be highlighted if I use a hashtag validator."You can get the relative frames of words within the text view with the method below. This is how I set up the stars effect in the first example gif.
public func framesOfWordsMatchingValidator(_ validator: TextSelectionValidator) -> [CGRect]You can adjust the number of spaces a tab character creates using TabTextModelConfig.numberOfSpaces. The default value is 4.
TabTextModelConfig.numberOfSpaces = 2You can set most customization properties via interface builder. SelectableTextView is marked as @IBDesignable.
numberOfLines: Inttext: StringtextColor: UIColorlineSpacing: FloatisSelectionEnabled: BoolisScrollEnabled: BoolfontSize: FloattruncateTail: BooltopTextInsets: FloatbottomTextInsets: FloatleftTextInsets: FloatrightTextInsets: Float
Default implementations are provided for all SelectableTextViewDelegate methods.
public protocol SelectableTextViewDelegate: class {
/// Resolves conflict between multiple validates that return `true` from their `validate:` method
//
// i.e. PrefixTextValidator for `#` and `#my` will both return true for `#myCoolHashtag`,
// but the actions they are registered for may differ
//
/// Default behavior is to choose the first validator in the composite validator's `validators` array
func resolveValidationConflictsForSelectableTextView(textView: SelectableTextView, conflictingValidators: [TextSelectionValidator]) -> TextSelectionValidator
/// Defaults to `false`
func animateExpansionButtonForSelectableTextView(textView: SelectableTextView) -> Bool
/// Defaults to `.truncateTail`
func truncationModeForWordsThatDontFitForSelectableTextView(textView: SelectableTextView) -> TruncationMode
/// Optional, Default empty implementation provideed
func selectableTextViewContentHeightDidChange(textView: SelectableTextView, oldHeight: CGFloat, newHeight: CGFloat)
}SelectableTextView supports scrolling and forwards scroll events through SelectableTextViewScrollDelegate.
public protocol SelectableTextViewScrollDelegate: class {
func selectableTextViewDidScroll(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
func selectableTextViewWillBeginDragging(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
func selectableTextViewWillEndDragging(_ scrollView: UIScrollView, withVelocity velocity: CGPoint, targetContentOffset: UnsafeMutablePointer<CGPoint>)
func selectableTextViewDidEndDragging(_ scrollView: UIScrollView, willDecelerate decelerate: Bool)
func selectableTextViewWillBeginDecelerating(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
func selectableTextViewDidEndDecelerating(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
func selectableTextViewDidEndScrollingAnimation(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
}You can also scroll to specific words or the first word that passes a validator.
/// Scrolls to the first instance of the word
/// Attempts to match the text and display text of a word
public func scrollToWord(_ word: String, position: ScrollPosition, animated: Bool)
/// Scrolls to the first instance of a word that passes the provided TextSelectionValidator
public func scrollToWordPassingValidator(_ validator: TextSelectionValidator, position: ScrollPosition, animated: Bool)- Character wrapping
- More truncation styles:
.head,.center
Feel free to email me at jhurray33@gmail.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, or see examples where this has been used.