Ios – Format UITextField text without having cursor move to the end

iosswiftuitextfielduitextfielddelegate

I am trying to apply NSAttributedString styles to a UITextField after processing a new text entry, keystroke by keystroke. The problem is that any time I replace the text the cursor will jump the very end on each change. Here's my current approach …

Receive and display text change immediately (same issue applies when I return false and do the text replacement manually)

func textField(textField: UITextField!, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String!) -> Bool {        
    let range:NSRange = NSRange(location: range.location, length: range.length)
    let newString = (textField.text as NSString).stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range, withString: string);
    return true
}

I subscribed to the UITextFieldTextDidChangeNotification notification. This triggers the styling. When the text is changed I replace it (NSString) with the formatted version (NSAttributedString) using some format() function.

func textFieldTextDidChangeNotification(userInfo:NSDictionary) {
    var attributedString:NSMutableAttributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: fullString)
    attributedString = format(textField.text) as NSMutableAttributedString
    textField.attributedText = attributedString
}

Styling works fine like this. However after each text replacement the cursor jumps to the end of the string. How can I turn off this behaviour or manually move the cursor back where it started the edit? … or is there a better solution to style the text while editing?

Best Answer

The way to make this work is to grab the location of the cursor, update the field contents, and then replace the cursor to its original position. I'm not sure of the exact equivalent in Swift, but the following is how I would do it in Obj-C.

- (BOOL)textField:(UITextField *)textField shouldChangeCharactersInRange:(NSRange)range replacementString:(NSString *)string
{
    UITextPosition *beginning = textField.beginningOfDocument;
    UITextPosition *cursorLocation = [textField positionFromPosition:beginning offset:(range.location + string.length)];

    textField.text = [textField.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:range withString:string];

    /* MAKE YOUR CHANGES TO THE FIELD CONTENTS AS NEEDED HERE */

    // cursorLocation will be (null) if you're inputting text at the end of the string
    // if already at the end, no need to change location as it will default to end anyway
    if(cursorLocation)
    {
        // set start/end location to same spot so that nothing is highlighted
        [textField setSelectedTextRange:[textField textRangeFromPosition:cursorLocation toPosition:cursorLocation]];
    }

    return NO;
}

Related Solutions

Ios – How to make a UITextField move up when the keyboard is present – on starting to edit

You will only need a ScrollView if the contents you have now do not fit in the iPhone screen. (If you are adding the ScrollView as the superview of the components just to make the TextField scroll up when keyboard comes up, then it's not needed.)
The standard way to prevent the TextFields from being covered by the keyboard is to move the view up/down whenever the keyboard is shown.

Here is some sample code:

#define kOFFSET_FOR_KEYBOARD 80.0

-(void)keyboardWillShow {
    // Animate the current view out of the way
    if (self.view.frame.origin.y >= 0)
    {
        [self setViewMovedUp:YES];
    }
    else if (self.view.frame.origin.y < 0)
    {
        [self setViewMovedUp:NO];
    }
}

-(void)keyboardWillHide {
    if (self.view.frame.origin.y >= 0)
    {
        [self setViewMovedUp:YES];
    }
    else if (self.view.frame.origin.y < 0)
    {
        [self setViewMovedUp:NO];
    }
}

-(void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)sender
{
    if ([sender isEqual:mailTf])
    {
        //move the main view, so that the keyboard does not hide it.
        if  (self.view.frame.origin.y >= 0)
        {
            [self setViewMovedUp:YES];
        }
    }
}

//method to move the view up/down whenever the keyboard is shown/dismissed
-(void)setViewMovedUp:(BOOL)movedUp
{
    [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL];
    [UIView setAnimationDuration:0.3]; // if you want to slide up the view

    CGRect rect = self.view.frame;
    if (movedUp)
    {
        // 1. move the view's origin up so that the text field that will be hidden come above the keyboard 
        // 2. increase the size of the view so that the area behind the keyboard is covered up.
        rect.origin.y -= kOFFSET_FOR_KEYBOARD;
        rect.size.height += kOFFSET_FOR_KEYBOARD;
    }
    else
    {
        // revert back to the normal state.
        rect.origin.y += kOFFSET_FOR_KEYBOARD;
        rect.size.height -= kOFFSET_FOR_KEYBOARD;
    }
    self.view.frame = rect;

    [UIView commitAnimations];
}


- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];
    // register for keyboard notifications
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(keyboardWillShow)
                                             name:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification
                                           object:nil];

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(keyboardWillHide)
                                             name:UIKeyboardWillHideNotification
                                           object:nil];
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
    // unregister for keyboard notifications while not visible.
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self
                                             name:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification
                                           object:nil];

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self
                                             name:UIKeyboardWillHideNotification
                                           object:nil];
}

Ios – iPhone UITextField – Change placeholder text color

Since the introduction of attributed strings in UIViews in iOS 6, it's possible to assign a color to the placeholder text like this:

if ([textField respondsToSelector:@selector(setAttributedPlaceholder:)]) {
  UIColor *color = [UIColor blackColor];
  textField.attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:placeholderText attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: color}];
} else {
  NSLog(@"Cannot set placeholder text's color, because deployment target is earlier than iOS 6.0");
  // TODO: Add fall-back code to set placeholder color.
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ios – How to make a UITextField move up when the keyboard is present – on starting to edit

Ios – iPhone UITextField – Change placeholder text color

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