Set a default font for whole iOS app?

Question

I have a custom font I want to use for everything displaying text in my app, labels, text views etc.

Is there a way to set the default font (labels by default use SystemFont) for the whole app?

Answer 1

Probably not, you will probably have the set the font on your control yourself, but you can make the process easier by centralizing where you get the font types from, for example have the app delegate or some other common class have a method that returns the font, and anything needing to set the font can call that method, that will help in case you need to change your font, youd change it in one place rather than everywhere you set the fonts...Another alternative can be to make subclasses of your UI Elements that will automatically set the font, but that might be overkill..

Answer 2

Font type always be set in code and nib/storyboard.

For the code,just like Hugues BR said,do it in catagory can solve the problem.

For the nib/storyboard,we can Method Swizzling awakeFromNib to change font type since UI element from nib/storyboard always call it before show in the screen.

I suppose you know Aspects.It's a library for AOP programing,based on Method Swizzling. We create catagory for UILabel,UIButton,UITextView to implement it.

UILabel:

#import "UILabel+OverrideBaseFont.h"
#import "Aspects.h"

@implementation UILabel (OverrideBaseFont)

+ (void)load {
    [[self class]aspect_hookSelector:@selector(awakeFromNib) withOptions:AspectPositionAfter usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo) {
        UILabel* instance = [aspectInfo instance];
        UIFont* font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-light" size:instance.font.pointSize];
        instance.font = font;
    }error:nil];
}

@end

UIButton:

#import "UIButton+OverrideBaseFont.h"
#import "Aspects.h"

@implementation UIButton (OverrideBaseFont)

+ (void)load {
    [[self class]aspect_hookSelector:@selector(awakeFromNib) withOptions:AspectPositionAfter usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo) {
        UIButton* instance = [aspectInfo instance];
        UILabel* label = instance.titleLabel;
        UIFont* font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-light" size:label.font.pointSize];
        instance.titleLabel.font = font;
    }error:nil];
}

@end

UITextField:

#import "UITextField+OverrideBaseFont.h"
#import "Aspects.h"

@implementation UITextField (OverrideBaseFont)

+ (void)load {
    [[self class]aspect_hookSelector:@selector(awakeFromNib) withOptions:AspectPositionAfter usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo) {
        UITextField* instance = [aspectInfo instance];
        UIFont* font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-light" size:instance.font.pointSize];
        instance.font = font;
    }error:nil];
}

@end

UITextView:

#import "UITextView+OverrideBaseFont.h"
#import "Aspects.h"

@implementation UITextView (OverrideBaseFont)

+ (void)load {
    [[self class]aspect_hookSelector:@selector(awakeFromNib) withOptions:AspectPositionAfter usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo) {
        UITextView* instance = [aspectInfo instance];
        UIFont* font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-light" size:instance.font.pointSize];
        instance.font = font;
    }error:nil];
}

@end

That's all,you can change HelveticaNeue-light to a macro with your font name.

Answer 3

I created my own conversion of typography for Swift 4 after reviewing a few posts, it covers most of the cases, such as:

struct Resources {

    struct Fonts {
        //struct is extended in Fonts
    }
}

extension Resources.Fonts {

    enum Weight: String {
        case light = "Typo-Light"
        case regular = "Typo-Regular"
        case semibold = "Typo-Semibold"
        case italic = "Typo-LightItalic"
    }
}

extension UIFontDescriptor.AttributeName {
    static let nsctFontUIUsage = UIFontDescriptor.AttributeName(rawValue: "NSCTFontUIUsageAttribute")
}

extension UIFont {

    @objc class func mySystemFont(ofSize: CGFloat, weight: UIFont.Weight) -> UIFont {
        switch weight {
        case .semibold, .bold, .heavy, .black:
            return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.semibold.rawValue, size: ofSize)!

        case .medium, .regular:
            return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.regular.rawValue, size: ofSize)!

        default:
            return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.light.rawValue, size: ofSize)!
        }
    }

    @objc class func mySystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.light.rawValue, size: size)!
    }

    @objc class func myBoldSystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.semibold.rawValue, size: size)!
    }

    @objc class func myItalicSystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: Resources.Fonts.Weight.italic.rawValue, size: size)!
    }

    @objc convenience init(myCoder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        guard
            let fontDescriptor = aDecoder.decodeObject(forKey: "UIFontDescriptor") as? UIFontDescriptor,
            let fontAttribute = fontDescriptor.fontAttributes[.nsctFontUIUsage] as? String else {
                self.init(myCoder: aDecoder)
                return
        }
        var fontName = ""
        switch fontAttribute {
        case "CTFontRegularUsage", "CTFontMediumUsage":
            fontName = Resources.Fonts.Weight.regular.rawValue
        case "CTFontEmphasizedUsage", "CTFontBoldUsage", "CTFontSemiboldUsage","CTFontHeavyUsage", "CTFontBlackUsage":
            fontName = Resources.Fonts.Weight.semibold.rawValue
        case "CTFontObliqueUsage":
            fontName = Resources.Fonts.Weight.italic.rawValue
        default:
            fontName = Resources.Fonts.Weight.light.rawValue
        }
        self.init(name: fontName, size: fontDescriptor.pointSize)!
    }

    class func overrideDefaultTypography() {
        guard self == UIFont.self else { return }

        if let systemFontMethodWithWeight = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(systemFont(ofSize: weight:))),
            let mySystemFontMethodWithWeight = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(mySystemFont(ofSize: weight:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(systemFontMethodWithWeight, mySystemFontMethodWithWeight)
        }

        if let systemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(systemFont(ofSize:))),
            let mySystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(mySystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(systemFontMethod, mySystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let boldSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(boldSystemFont(ofSize:))),
            let myBoldSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(myBoldSystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(boldSystemFontMethod, myBoldSystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let italicSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(italicSystemFont(ofSize:))),
            let myItalicSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(myItalicSystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(italicSystemFontMethod, myItalicSystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let initCoderMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(self, #selector(UIFontDescriptor.init(coder:))),
            let myInitCoderMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(self, #selector(UIFont.init(myCoder:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(initCoderMethod, myInitCoderMethod)
        }
    }
}

Finally call to created method at Appdelegate like next:

class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey : Any]? = nil) -> Bool {

        UIFont.overrideDefaultTypography()
        return true
    }
}

Answer 4

NUI is an alternative to the UIAppearance proxy. It gives you control over the font (and many other attributes) of a large number of UI element types throughout your application by simply modifying a style sheet, which can be reused across multiple applications.

After adding a NUILabel class to your labels, you could easily control their font in the style sheet:

LabelFontName    String    Helvetica

If you have labels with different font sizes, you could control their sizes using NUI's Label, LargeLabel, and SmallLabel classes, or even quickly create your own classes.

Answer 5

To complete Sandy Chapman's answer, here is a solution in Objective-C (put this category anywhere you want to change UILabel Appearance):

@implementation UILabel (FontOverride)
- (void)setSubstituteFontName:(NSString *)name UI_APPEARANCE_SELECTOR {
    self.font = [UIFont fontWithName:name size:self.font.pointSize];
}
@end

The interface file, should have this method declared publicly to be used later from places like your app delegate:

@interface UILabel (FontOverride)
  - (void)setSubstituteFontName:(NSString *)name UI_APPEARANCE_SELECTOR;
@end

Then, you can change the Appearance with:

[[UILabel appearance] setSubstituteFontName:@"SourceSansPro-Light"];

Answer 6

Swift 4.1

Base on Fábio Oliveira's answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/23042694/2082851), I make my own swift 4.

In short, this extension exchanges default functions init(coder:), systemFont(ofSize:), boldSystemFont(ofSize:), italicSystemFont(ofSize:) with my custom methods.

Note that it's not fully implement, but you can exchange more methods base on my implementation.

import UIKit

struct AppFontName {
    static let regular = "CourierNewPSMT"
    static let bold = "CourierNewPS-BoldMT"
    static let italic = "CourierNewPS-ItalicMT"
}

extension UIFontDescriptor.AttributeName {
    static let nsctFontUIUsage = UIFontDescriptor.AttributeName(rawValue: "NSCTFontUIUsageAttribute")
}

extension UIFont {

    @objc class func mySystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: AppFontName.regular, size: size)!
    }

    @objc class func myBoldSystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: AppFontName.bold, size: size)!
    }

    @objc class func myItalicSystemFont(ofSize size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {
        return UIFont(name: AppFontName.italic, size: size)!
    }

    @objc convenience init(myCoder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        guard
            let fontDescriptor = aDecoder.decodeObject(forKey: "UIFontDescriptor") as? UIFontDescriptor,
            let fontAttribute = fontDescriptor.fontAttributes[.nsctFontUIUsage] as? String else {
                self.init(myCoder: aDecoder)
                return
        }
        var fontName = ""
        switch fontAttribute {
        case "CTFontRegularUsage":
            fontName = AppFontName.regular
        case "CTFontEmphasizedUsage", "CTFontBoldUsage":
            fontName = AppFontName.bold
        case "CTFontObliqueUsage":
            fontName = AppFontName.italic
        default:
            fontName = AppFontName.regular
        }
        self.init(name: fontName, size: fontDescriptor.pointSize)!
    }

    class func overrideInitialize() {
        guard self == UIFont.self else { return }

        if let systemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(systemFont(ofSize:))),
            let mySystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(mySystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(systemFontMethod, mySystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let boldSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(boldSystemFont(ofSize:))),
            let myBoldSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(myBoldSystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(boldSystemFontMethod, myBoldSystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let italicSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(italicSystemFont(ofSize:))),
            let myItalicSystemFontMethod = class_getClassMethod(self, #selector(myItalicSystemFont(ofSize:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(italicSystemFontMethod, myItalicSystemFontMethod)
        }

        if let initCoderMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(self, #selector(UIFontDescriptor.init(coder:))), // Trick to get over the lack of UIFont.init(coder:))
            let myInitCoderMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(self, #selector(UIFont.init(myCoder:))) {
            method_exchangeImplementations(initCoderMethod, myInitCoderMethod)
        }
    }
}


class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
    // Avoid warning of Swift
    // Method 'initialize()' defines Objective-C class method 'initialize', which is not guaranteed to be invoked by Swift and will be disallowed in future versions
    override init() {
        super.init()
        UIFont.overrideInitialize()
    }
    ...
}