Create tap-able “links” in the NSAttributedString

Question

I have been searching this for hours but I've failed. I probably don't even know what I should be looking for.

Many applications have text and in this text are web hyperlinks in rounded rect. When I click them UIWebView opens. What puzzles me is that they often have custom links, for example if words starts with # it is also clickable and the application responds by opening another view. How can I do that? Is it possible with UILabel or do I need UITextView or something else?

Answer 1

UITextView supports data-detectors in OS3.0, whereas UILabel doesn't.

If you enable the data-detectors on the UITextView and your text contains URLs, phone numbers, etc. they will appear as links.

Answer 2

I'm extending @samwize's answer to handle multi-line UILabel and give an example on using for a UIButton

extension UITapGestureRecognizer {

    func didTapAttributedTextInButton(button: UIButton, inRange targetRange: NSRange) -> Bool {
        guard let label = button.titleLabel else { return false }
        return didTapAttributedTextInLabel(label, inRange: targetRange)
    }

    func didTapAttributedTextInLabel(label: UILabel, inRange targetRange: NSRange) -> Bool {
        // Create instances of NSLayoutManager, NSTextContainer and NSTextStorage
        let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()
        let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: CGSize.zero)
        let textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: label.attributedText!)

        // Configure layoutManager and textStorage
        layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)
        textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)

        // Configure textContainer
        textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0
        textContainer.lineBreakMode = label.lineBreakMode
        textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = label.numberOfLines
        let labelSize = label.bounds.size
        textContainer.size = labelSize

        // Find the tapped character location and compare it to the specified range
        let locationOfTouchInLabel = self.locationInView(label)
        let textBoundingBox = layoutManager.usedRectForTextContainer(textContainer)
        let textContainerOffset = CGPointMake((labelSize.width - textBoundingBox.size.width) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.x,
                                              (labelSize.height - textBoundingBox.size.height) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.y);
        let locationOfTouchInTextContainer = CGPointMake((locationOfTouchInLabel.x - textContainerOffset.x),
                                                         0 );
        // Adjust for multiple lines of text
        let lineModifier = Int(ceil(locationOfTouchInLabel.y / label.font.lineHeight)) - 1
        let rightMostFirstLinePoint = CGPointMake(labelSize.width, 0)
        let charsPerLine = layoutManager.characterIndexForPoint(rightMostFirstLinePoint, inTextContainer: textContainer, fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints: nil)

        let indexOfCharacter = layoutManager.characterIndexForPoint(locationOfTouchInTextContainer, inTextContainer: textContainer, fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints: nil)
        let adjustedRange = indexOfCharacter + (lineModifier * charsPerLine)

        return NSLocationInRange(adjustedRange, targetRange)
    }

}

Answer 3

Worked in Swift 3, pasting the entire code here

    //****Make sure the textview 'Selectable' = checked, and 'Editable = Unchecked'

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController, UITextViewDelegate {

    @IBOutlet var theNewTextView: UITextView!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        //****textview = Selectable = checked, and Editable = Unchecked

        theNewTextView.delegate = self

        let theString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "Agree to Terms")
        let theRange = theString.mutableString.range(of: "Terms")

        theString.addAttribute(NSLinkAttributeName, value: "ContactUs://", range: theRange)

        let theAttribute = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.blue, NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName: NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle.rawValue] as [String : Any]

        theNewTextView.linkTextAttributes = theAttribute

     theNewTextView.attributedText = theString             

theString.setAttributes(theAttribute, range: theRange)

    }

    func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldInteractWith URL: URL, in characterRange: NSRange, interaction: UITextItemInteraction) -> Bool {

        if (URL.scheme?.hasPrefix("ContactUs://"))! {

            return false //interaction not allowed
        }

        //*** Set storyboard id same as VC name
        self.navigationController!.pushViewController((self.storyboard?.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "TheLastViewController"))! as UIViewController, animated: true)

        return true
    }

}

Answer 4

Create the class with the following .h and .m files. In the .m file there is the following function

 - (void)linkAtPoint:(CGPoint)location

Inside this function we will check the ranges of substrings for which we need to give actions. Use your own logic to put your ranges.

And following is the usage of the subclass

TaggedLabel *label = [[TaggedLabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 100)];
[self.view addSubview:label];
label.numberOfLines = 0;
NSMutableAttributedString *attributtedString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString : @"My name is @jjpp" attributes : @{ NSFontAttributeName : [UIFont systemFontOfSize:10],}];                                                                                                                                                                              
//Do not forget to add the font attribute.. else it wont work.. it is very important
[attributtedString addAttribute:NSForegroundColorAttributeName
                        value:[UIColor redColor]
                        range:NSMakeRange(11, 5)];//you can give this range inside the .m function mentioned above

following is the .h file

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface TaggedLabel : UILabel<NSLayoutManagerDelegate>

@property(nonatomic, strong)NSLayoutManager *layoutManager;
@property(nonatomic, strong)NSTextContainer *textContainer;
@property(nonatomic, strong)NSTextStorage *textStorage;
@property(nonatomic, strong)NSArray *tagsArray;
@property(readwrite, copy) tagTapped nameTagTapped;

@end   

following is the .m file

#import "TaggedLabel.h"
@implementation TaggedLabel

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
 self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
 if (self)
 {
  self.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
 }
return self;
}

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder
{
 self = [super initWithCoder:aDecoder];
if (self)
{
 self.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
}
return self;
}

- (void)setupTextSystem
{
 _layoutManager = [[NSLayoutManager alloc] init];
 _textContainer = [[NSTextContainer alloc] initWithSize:CGSizeZero];
 _textStorage = [[NSTextStorage alloc] initWithAttributedString:self.attributedText];
 // Configure layoutManager and textStorage
 [_layoutManager addTextContainer:_textContainer];
 [_textStorage addLayoutManager:_layoutManager];
 // Configure textContainer
 _textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0;
 _textContainer.lineBreakMode = NSLineBreakByWordWrapping;
 _textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = 0;
 self.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
 self.textContainer.size = self.bounds.size;
}

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
 if (!_layoutManager)
 {
  [self setupTextSystem];
 }
 // Get the info for the touched link if there is one
 CGPoint touchLocation = [[touches anyObject] locationInView:self];
 [self linkAtPoint:touchLocation];
}

- (void)linkAtPoint:(CGPoint)location
{
 // Do nothing if we have no text
 if (_textStorage.string.length == 0)
 {
  return;
 }
 // Work out the offset of the text in the view
 CGPoint textOffset = [self calcGlyphsPositionInView];
 // Get the touch location and use text offset to convert to text cotainer coords
 location.x -= textOffset.x;
 location.y -= textOffset.y;
 NSUInteger touchedChar = [_layoutManager glyphIndexForPoint:location inTextContainer:_textContainer];
 // If the touch is in white space after the last glyph on the line we don't
 // count it as a hit on the text
 NSRange lineRange;
 CGRect lineRect = [_layoutManager lineFragmentUsedRectForGlyphAtIndex:touchedChar effectiveRange:&lineRange];
 if (CGRectContainsPoint(lineRect, location) == NO)
 {
  return;
 }
 // Find the word that was touched and call the detection block
    NSRange range = NSMakeRange(11, 5);//for this example i'm hardcoding the range here. In a real scenario it should be iterated through an array for checking all the ranges
    if ((touchedChar >= range.location) && touchedChar < (range.location + range.length))
    {
     NSLog(@"range-->>%@",self.tagsArray[i][@"range"]);
    }
}

- (CGPoint)calcGlyphsPositionInView
{
 CGPoint textOffset = CGPointZero;
 CGRect textBounds = [_layoutManager usedRectForTextContainer:_textContainer];
 textBounds.size.width = ceil(textBounds.size.width);
 textBounds.size.height = ceil(textBounds.size.height);

 if (textBounds.size.height < self.bounds.size.height)
 {
  CGFloat paddingHeight = (self.bounds.size.height - textBounds.size.height) / 2.0;
  textOffset.y = paddingHeight;
 }

 if (textBounds.size.width < self.bounds.size.width)
 {
  CGFloat paddingHeight = (self.bounds.size.width - textBounds.size.width) / 2.0;
  textOffset.x = paddingHeight;
 }
 return textOffset;
 }

@end

Answer 5

    NSString *string = name;
    NSError *error = NULL;
    NSDataDetector *detector =
    [NSDataDetector dataDetectorWithTypes:(NSTextCheckingTypes)NSTextCheckingTypeLink | NSTextCheckingTypePhoneNumber
                                    error:&error];
    NSArray *matches = [detector matchesInString:string
                                         options:0
                                           range:NSMakeRange(0, [string length])];
    for (NSTextCheckingResult *match in matches)
    {
        if (([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypePhoneNumber))
        {
            NSString *phoneNumber = [match phoneNumber];
            NSLog(@" Phone Number is :%@",phoneNumber);
            label.enabledTextCheckingTypes = NSTextCheckingTypePhoneNumber;
        }

        if(([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypeLink))
        {
            NSURL *email = [match URL];
            NSLog(@"Email is  :%@",email);
            label.enabledTextCheckingTypes = NSTextCheckingTypeLink;
        }

        if (([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypeLink))
        {
            NSURL *url = [match URL];
            NSLog(@"URL is  :%@",url);
            label.enabledTextCheckingTypes = NSTextCheckingTypeLink;
        }
    }

    label.text =name;
}

Answer 6

I had a hard time dealing with this... UILabel with links on it on attributed text... it is just a headache so I ended up using ZSWTappableLabel.