Display Text Word by Word on iOS - ios

Question

(I recognize that this is a duplicate of another question of mine, but that was put on hold, and when I reworked the question I was instructed to post it as a new question as none of the answers there could solve my request.)
I have a request that I think should be fairly easy to accomplish, but I cannot find the solution anywhere.
Say I have a string with about a paragraph or so of text. I want to display that text on a UITextView, but in a special way. I want the words to print out one by one, kind of like how you see in the movies on old computer terminals.
I do not have trouble splitting the string, that is OK, but the trouble is I cannot print out the individuals strings to my textView one by one. The UItextView is called self.textView. My code is as follows:
for (int wordIndex = 0; wordIndex < [wordList count]; wordIndex++) {
//[self.textView setText: [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# %#",self.textView.text, [wordList objectAtIndex:wordIndex]]];
NSString *newText = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#", [wordList objectAtIndex:wordIndex]];
fullString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# %#",fullString, newText];
[self.textView performSelector:#selector(setText:) withObject:fullString afterDelay:.9];
}
Where fullString is a global variable. Wordlist is an NSArray of my words (as strings).
If you need further clarification, then please do not hesitate to ask. Thanks so much!

Answer 1

Rather than trying to do everything in a loop, I suggest setting up a repeating NSTimer and adding a new word to your text view each time it fires. That gives you better control of the timing of updates and gives the UI a chance to display the result before the next iteration. When the last word has been shown, invalidate the timer.

Answer 2

Using answers from #Phillip Mills and #Ashish Kakkad I have figured this out. Here is my code (I cannot get to to format correctly, so if someone could edit it for me that would be awesome):
- (void) startTimer {
if ( self.wordtimer == nil ) {
self.wordtimer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval: 0.1
target: self
selector: #selector(printWords)
userInfo: nil
repeats: YES];
}
}
- (void) stopTimer {
if ( self.wordtimer || [self.wordtimer isValid])
{
[self.wordtimer invalidate];
self.wordtimer = nil;
}
}
-(void)printWords {
AppDelegate *appDelegate = (AppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
Element *tempElement = [[Element alloc] init];
tempElement = [self.elementsArray objectAtIndex:appDelegate.currentElement];
NSArray *wordList = [tempElement.text componentsSeparatedByString:#" "];
if(wordIndex < [wordList count]){
[self.textView setText: [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# %#",self.textView.text, [wordList objectAtIndex:wordIndex]]];
wordIndex++;
[self resetTextAndFont];
[self.textView setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:#"HelveticaNeue-Medium" size:15]];
NSLog(#"Timer Fired!");
}
else {
//[self.wordtimer invalidate];
[self stopTimer];
NSLog(#"Timer quit.");
[self resetTextAndFont];
[self.textView setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:#"HelveticaNeue-Medium" size:15]];
wordIndex = 0;
}
}
Whenever I want to fire the animation I just clear the textView's text and call [self startTimer] and to invalidate it I just call [self stopTimer]. Wordindex is a global integer.

Answer 3

For displaying the word by word, you need to first split the sentence in a space character using componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet and it will return an array then the same you need to extract in a delay manner after that you can append the string in your UITexyView which can be done by using NSTimer and like that below:-
//Below for delaying use the timer
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
timer=[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:3 target:self selector:#selector(startTimer) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
}
//Below is the timer method
-(void)startTimer
{
//Assuming some string
NSString *str=#"This is testing";
//Splitting the sentence by space character
NSArray *arr=[str componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceCharacterSet]];
//len is integer which is a counter for iteration of array.
if (len<arr.count)
{
//Appending word by word
[[self.textView textStorage] appendAttributedString:[[NSAttributedString alloc]initWithString:arr[len]]];
[[self.textView textStorage] appendAttributedString:[[NSAttributedString alloc]initWithString:#" "]];
len++;
}
else
{
[timer invalidate];
return;
}
}

Answer 4

Take global to class string and int variable say string is fullString and int variable is wordIndex. Use NSTimer or delay to invoke custom method. In that method put check like
if(wordIndex < [wordList count]){
NSString *newText = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#", [wordList objectAtIndex:wordIndex]];
// increment the global int variable by one i.e.wordIndex++
// append this string to exsting string
// set appended text to textview...
}