Currently, I am working on an iOS application, in which, our client asked for a feature and I am not quite sure how to implement it. We need to add an editable UITextView in the shape of specific map as attached in the image. While doing R&D I came to know that we can create a UITextView with the help of customized NSLayoutManager, NSTextStorage and NSTextContainer. But didn't get any detailed example for this type of complex issue.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thank You!
Required editable textview within the customized shape.
Need to display text within the customized shape.
If I were you, I'd create 4 UITextFields and handle the shouldChangeCharactersInRange delegate on them. Then I'd combine the text of all 4 fields to one and split it manually according to its size.
Related
This is more of a question of how to go about achieving it rather than a specific solution. I would like to have a label which allowed buttons and textfields to be inline and wrap to the next line. An example is the iOS shortcuts app where you can type in the same block as the text, and the textfield wraps along the same line. It is a textfield as there is a caret.
At a highlevel it might look something like this:
where each view follows the line and wraps to the next when needed.
I originally thought about using an NSAttributedString with links that were styled and the link could either act as a button, or open a textfield for input. I tried this and got something which worked but it did not resemble the iOS shortcuts app where the textfield is within the text. I have also thought about using textkit, but I have not gotten that far with this as I am not sure it is the correct approach.
Thank you for any ideas or solutions.
EDIT
I have thought about another way of achieving this but I don't know whether it would work either. The idea would be to use a collectionView of textfields. Some textfields would share the same LayoutManager so that the text is shared across the textfields. I would have to calculate how many textfields to create so that they flowed down the collectionView
In the image, Label 1 is made up of 1 textfield which has editing disabled. TextField 1 is made up of 3 textfields which have editing enabled and the three textfields would share the same LayoutManager. Label 2 is made up of 2 textfields with a shared layout manager, but editing disabled.
Using this approach would mean calculating how many textfields to create for each "Block" (Label or TextField) and updating this each time content changes. With this approach, I am only thinking of labels and textfields but the button can be added at another time.
I just started on this, but realised that sharing layout managers disables editing so I don't know whether this would be possible anymore.
Thanks
This is non trivial task for sure, and I don't think there's a ready-for-use solution.
Using NSLayoutManager you can calculate frames of each line/character of your text, and then forbid touches depending on these frames, and add background under editable text.
You have to use UITextView, because you gonna need to forbid user to select part of the text, and you can do it using something like willChangeSelectionFromCharacterRange:toCharacterRange: delegate method, and ofc you need shouldChangeTextIn: to forbid removing non editable text too.
I need to create a dialog, similar to the one that is used to write functions in Numbers from APple, for example.
User can select range in the table, which is then represented as any kind of UIView inside text input line. When long-tapped, the content can be edited like normal text, but what is most important is that whole subView, containing text with range description is treated as one character.
Does anybody know or have idea how to achieve this?
I would appreciate any hints...
I had to deal with something similar, to have custom UIView(s) in a search field.
I'm not aware of a "simple" way (ie, API) to achieve your goal. You need to create a custom component that looks like a classic field, but isn't one.
To be a little more specific:
Subclass an UIView (or directly an UIScrollView)
Have inside a TextField (or UITextView depending if it needs more than one line) to handle the "keyboard".
Put some custom UIView/UILabel before the textField/textView and adjust the textField/textView origin depending these views/labels
If you want to have a label/view IN the text, then it's a little more complex and you'll need something even more custom:
Handling the keyboard events without a textField/textView (there is a way but I forgot how exactly)
Drawing the text and adding views/labels in specific locations.
Of course all depends on the component you want to create ^^ there is no one simple answer.
I am working with a UITable View and I am trying to figure out the best way to handle the way I display the content as its dynamic.
For instance some of the things I search may have a title and a description but then other times only have a title.
In a n instance like this I would like to be able to control the positioning of the labels in my UITableCell, of which I have created a custom one.
For instance this is a graphical view of what I am trying to do.
Title:
No Title:
As you can see with the second option I have decided to move the UILabel to the left where the Title label would be.
So What would be the best way of doing this?
I am thinking maybe creating several different format types in a .xib and then just using if statments.. if its missing such and such then use cell a or b or c.
Or is there a better way to achieve this?
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
The different formats in .xib files will do the trick, just instance the proper cell type according to your needs, the other is delving into how you draw your cells, adding labels as you see fit when you get your data and drawing them appropriately.
I want a text field similar to the stock messaging app in the iPhone. Text field should have the same look and should be expandable to allow multi-line editing. Could you please suggest a method to get this in my app?
Thanks.
Use a UITextField.
To get the height of the text field use -sizeWithFont:constrainedToSize:lineBreakMode:.
To have the look of the Apple's text field put an image behind the text field that looks like Apple's text field. See -resizableImageWithCapInsets: to get the image to stretch properly.
Have a look at this :
UIBubbleTableView
EDIT :
The previous link was for the "bubble styled" tableview. If you want the view where you actually type the message, this is the one :
HPGrowingTextView
For other people who are searching for libraries but the ones mentioned here are with many bugs
Here is a library:
SlackTextViewController
A drop-in UIViewController subclass with a growing text input view and other useful messaging features. Meant to be a replacement for UITableViewController & UICollectionViewController.
Working on an app that needs to take a large amount of text, paginate it based on user selected font size, etc., and display it with styles. Getting UIWebView to paginate a document has proven extremely troublesome. I have seen a wrapper for Core Text that apparently, takes care of layout, but my understanding is that core text cannot be selected.
Anyone know how they accomplished this? I had assumed it was UIWebView.
Thanks in advance.
Prior to 3.2 displaying formatted text other than in a webview was nigh inpossible. Since then though we have NSAttributedString and corresponding UiKit elements which can display some font variations, colouring, formatting within one string. Pagination and other behaviour is outside of its scope though, and you would have to implement it yourself via a pageable scrollview as one possibility. Selection will also prove difficult, as you would have to implement it yourself again by ways of UiView hit detection on your UILabels and by implementing touchesBegan:, touchesMoved: and touchesEnded: and drawing the selection yourself.
Take a look at UITextView with Syntax Highlighting
Good luck!