How to make UITextView detect links for website, m

Question

I have a UITextView object. The text in UIView has a phone number, mail link, a website link. I want to show them as links with following functionality.

When someone taps on URL - Safari should open the the website. When someone taps on email link - Mail should open up with my address in to field When someone taps on phone number - Phone application should call the number

Has anyone done this before or knows how to handle it?

Thanks, AJ

Answer 1

If you are using OS3.0

you can do it like the following

textview.editable = NO;
textview.dataDetectorTypes = UIDataDetectorTypeAll;

Answer 2

Swift 3.0 +

As of swift 3.0, use the following code if you want to do it programmatically.

textview.isEditable = false
textview.dataDetectorTypes = .all

Or if you have a storyboard

Answer 3

I'm curious, do you have control over the text shown? If so, you should probably just stick it in a UIWebView and throw some links in there to do it "the right way".

Answer 4

A note on detecting email addresses: The Mail app must be installed (it's not on the iOS Simulator) for email links to open a message compose screen.

Answer 5

Though the Question is super Old. Still if anyone faces the same issue,

Also it can be used as a UILabel. Though Below solution will do the job : [There isn't a need for any library..]

So I've used MFMailcomposer() and UITexView [ Code is in Swift 3.0 - Xcode 8.3.2 ]

A 100% Crash Proof and Working Code Handles all the corner cases. =D

Step 1.

import MessageUI

Step 2. Add the delegate

class ViewController: UITextViewDelegate, MFMailComposeViewControllerDelegate{

Step 3. Add the textView IBOutlet From StoryBoard

@IBOutlet weak var infoTextView: UITextView!

Step 4. Call the below method in your viewDidload()

func addInfoToTextView()  {
    let attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "For further info call us on : \(phoneNumber)\nor mail us at : \(email)")
    attributedString.addAttribute(NSLinkAttributeName, value: "tel://", range: NSRange(location: 30, length: 10))
    attributedString.addAttribute(NSLinkAttributeName, value: "mailto:", range: NSRange(location: 57, length: 18))
    self.infoTextView.attributedText = attributedString
    self.infoTextView.linkTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.blue, NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName:NSNumber(value: 0)]
    self.infoTextView.textColor = .white
    self.infoTextView.textAlignment = .center
    self.infoTextView.isEditable = false
    self.infoTextView.dataDetectorTypes = UIDataDetectorTypes.all
    self.infoTextView.delegate = self
}

Step 5. Implement delegate methods for TextView

@available(iOS, deprecated: 10.0)
func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldInteractWith url: URL, in characterRange: NSRange) -> Bool {
    if (url.scheme?.contains("mailto"))! && characterRange.location > 55{
        openMFMail()
    }
    if (url.scheme?.contains("tel"))! && (characterRange.location > 29 && characterRange.location < 39){
        callNumber()
    }
    return false
}

//For iOS 10
@available(iOS 10.0, *)
func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldInteractWith url: URL, in characterRange: NSRange, interaction: UITextItemInteraction) -> Bool {
    if (url.scheme?.contains("mailto"))! && characterRange.location > 55{
        openMFMail()
    }
    if (url.scheme?.contains("tel"))! && (characterRange.location > 29 && characterRange.location < 39){
        callNumber()
    }
    return false
}

Step 6. Write the helper Methods to open MailComposer and Call App

func callNumber() {
    if let phoneCallURL = URL(string: "tel://\(phoneNumber)")
    {
        let application:UIApplication = UIApplication.shared
        if (application.canOpenURL(phoneCallURL))
        {
            let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Call", message: "\(phoneNumber)", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
            if #available(iOS 10.0, *)
            {
                alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Call", style: .cancel, handler: { (UIAlertAction) in
                    application.open(phoneCallURL, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
                }))
            }
            else
            {
                alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Call", style: .cancel, handler: { (UIAlertAction) in
                    application.openURL(phoneCallURL)
                }))
            }

            alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "cancel", style: .default, handler: nil))
            self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
        }
    }
    else
    {
        self.showAlert("Couldn't", message: "Call, cannot open Phone Screen")
    }
}
func openMFMail(){
    let mailComposer = MFMailComposeViewController()
    mailComposer.mailComposeDelegate = self
    mailComposer.setToRecipients(["\(email)"])
    mailComposer.setSubject("Subject..")
    mailComposer.setMessageBody("Please share your problem.", isHTML: false)
    present(mailComposer, animated: true, completion: nil)

}

Step 7. Write MFMailComposer's Delegate Method

func mailComposeController(_ controller: MFMailComposeViewController, didFinishWith result: MFMailComposeResult, error: Error?) {
    switch result {
    case .cancelled:
        print("Mail cancelled")
    case .saved:
        print("Mail saved")
    case .sent:
        print("Mail sent")
    case .failed:
        print("Mail sent failure: \(String(describing: error?.localizedDescription))")
    default:
        break
    }
    controller.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

That's it you're Done... =D

Here is the swift file for the above code : textViewWithEmailAndPhone.swift

Set the below properties to Use it as a UILabel

Answer 6

Step 1. Create a subclass of UITextview and override the canBecomeFirstResponder function

KDTextView.h Code:

@interface KDTextView : UITextView

@end

KDTextView.m Code:

#import "KDTextView.h"

// Textview to disable the selection options

@implementation KDTextView

- (BOOL)canBecomeFirstResponder {
    return NO;
}

@end

Step 2. Create the Textview using subclass KDTextView

KDTextView*_textView = [[KDTextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100)];
    [_textView setScrollEnabled:false];
    [_textView setEditable:false];
    _textView.delegate = self;
    [_textView setDataDetectorTypes:UIDataDetectorTypeAll];
    _textView.selectable = YES;
    _textView.delaysContentTouches = NO;
    _textView.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
    [self.view addSubview:_textView];

Step 3: Implement the delegate method

- (BOOL)textView:(UITextView *)textView shouldInteractWithURL:(NSURL *)URL inRange:(NSRange)characterRange
{
    return true;
}