Ios – iPhone UITextField – Change placeholder text color

iosuitextfield

I'd like to change the color of the placeholder text I set in my UITextField controls, to make it black.

I'd prefer to do this without using normal text as the placeholder and having to override all the methods to imitate the behaviour of a placeholder.

I believe if I override this method:

- (void)drawPlaceholderInRect:(CGRect)rect

then I should be able to do this. But I'm unsure how to access the actual placeholder object from within this method.

Best Answer

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.
}

Related Solutions

Ios – Vertically align text to top within a UILabel

There's no way to set the vertical-align on a UILabel, but you can get the same effect by changing the label's frame. I've made my labels orange so you can see clearly what's happening.

Here's the quick and easy way to do this:

    [myLabel sizeToFit];

sizeToFit to squeeze a label

If you have a label with longer text that will make more than one line, set numberOfLines to 0 (zero here means an unlimited number of lines).

    myLabel.numberOfLines = 0;
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

Longer label text with sizeToFit

Longer Version

I'll make my label in code so that you can see what's going on. You can set up most of this in Interface Builder too. My setup is a View-Based App with a background image I made in Photoshop to show margins (20 points). The label is an attractive orange color so you can see what's going on with the dimensions.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // 20 point top and left margin. Sized to leave 20 pt at right.
    CGRect labelFrame = CGRectMake(20, 20, 280, 150);
    UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:labelFrame];
    [myLabel setBackgroundColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];

    NSString *labelText = @"I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral";
    [myLabel setText:labelText];

    // Tell the label to use an unlimited number of lines
    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

    [self.view addSubview:myLabel];
}

Some limitations of using sizeToFit come into play with center- or right-aligned text. Here's what happens:

    // myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentRight;
    myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;

    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

enter image description here

The label is still sized with a fixed top-left corner. You can save the original label's width in a variable and set it after sizeToFit, or give it a fixed width to counter these problems:

    myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;

    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

    CGRect myFrame = myLabel.frame;
    // Resize the frame's width to 280 (320 - margins)
    // width could also be myOriginalLabelFrame.size.width
    myFrame = CGRectMake(myFrame.origin.x, myFrame.origin.y, 280, myFrame.size.height);
    myLabel.frame = myFrame;

label alignment

Note that sizeToFit will respect your initial label's minimum width. If you start with a label 100 wide and call sizeToFit on it, it will give you back a (possibly very tall) label with 100 (or a little less) width. You might want to set your label to the minimum width you want before resizing.

Correct label alignment by resizing the frame width

Some other things to note:

Whether lineBreakMode is respected depends on how it's set. NSLineBreakByTruncatingTail (the default) is ignored after sizeToFit, as are the other two truncation modes (head and middle). NSLineBreakByClipping is also ignored. NSLineBreakByCharWrapping works as usual. The frame width is still narrowed to fit to the rightmost letter.

Mark Amery gave a fix for NIBs and Storyboards using Auto Layout in the comments:

If your label is included in a nib or storyboard as a subview of the view of a ViewController that uses autolayout, then putting your sizeToFit call into viewDidLoad won't work, because autolayout sizes and positions the subviews after viewDidLoad is called and will immediately undo the effects of your sizeToFit call. However, calling sizeToFit from within viewDidLayoutSubviews will work.

My Original Answer (for posterity/reference):

This uses the NSString method sizeWithFont:constrainedToSize:lineBreakMode: to calculate the frame height needed to fit a string, then sets the origin and width.

Resize the frame for the label using the text you want to insert. That way you can accommodate any number of lines.

CGSize maximumSize = CGSizeMake(300, 9999);
NSString *dateString = @"The date today is January 1st, 1999";
UIFont *dateFont = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica" size:14];
CGSize dateStringSize = [dateString sizeWithFont:dateFont 
        constrainedToSize:maximumSize 
        lineBreakMode:self.dateLabel.lineBreakMode];

CGRect dateFrame = CGRectMake(10, 10, 300, dateStringSize.height);

self.dateLabel.frame = dateFrame;

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];
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ios – Vertically align text to top within a UILabel

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

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