Uitextfield

TextField

Great article which digs deeper in how textfield works with iOS internally. grokswift guide

Programmatic

Stack Overflow

Text Attributes

The general form for making and setting an attributed string is like this. You can find other common options below.

// create attributed string 
let myString = "Swift Attributed String" 
let myAttribute = [ NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.blue ] 
let myAttrString = NSAttributedString(string: myString, attributes: myAttribute)

// set attributed text on a UILabel 
myLabel.attributedText = myAttrString

Source

Color

We can set the blinking cursor color for the text field by setting the tintColor property.

// create attributed string 

let socialTextField = UITextField() 
socialTextField.tintColor = UIColor.yellow

Delegates

You can import or override various delegate methods for your specific custom textfields and cater it towards different functionalities you want to have.

// View
protocol LoginViewDelegate: class {
    /// Informs that user wants to login with credentials
    func LoginViewDidReturnPassword(_ view: LoginView)
}

class LoginView: UIView {
        private lazy var passwordTextField: CustomTextField = {
        let field =  CustomTextField(textColor: .White,
                                     isSecuredEntry: true,
                                     contentType: .password,
                                     textFieldLabel: Texts.password.rawValue)
        field.CustomTextField.delegate = self
        field.CustomTextField.accessibilityLabel = Accessibility.password.rawValue.localized
        field.CustomTextField.tag = 1
        return field
    }()
}

// MARK: - UITextFieldDelegate Methods
extension LoginView: UITextFieldDelegate {
   public func textFieldShouldReturn(_ textField: UITextField) -> Bool {
    if textField == passwordTextField.CustomTextField {
        print("Textfield value \(textField.text ?? "No Name")")
        delegate?.LoginViewDidReturnPassword(self)
    }
        textField.resignFirstResponder()
        return true
    }
}


// Controller Implementing Protocol

// MARK: - LoginViewDelegate Methods
extension LoginViewController: LoginViewDelegate {
    func LoginViewDidReturnPassword(_ view: LoginView) { }
}

Unique Textfield

Identifying which textfield belongs to can be done utilizing tags or even basic == operator.

This StackOverflow post explains it better.

Validation

Validation is needed for checking input fields like email and password or enforcing different policies on the user with available input options.

Small article Validating

Navigation

Form like navigation from one text field to next textfield SO Hacking With Swift

But I chose a different approach with custom Text fields and just directly sent the responder with specific text field.

class LoginView: UIView {
        private lazy var emailTextField: CustomTextField = {
         let field =  CustomTextField(keyboard: .emailAddress,
                                      textColor: .White,
                                      contentType: .emailAddress,
                                      textFieldLabel: Texts.emailLabel.rawValue)
        field.CustomTextField.delegate = self
        field.CustomTextField.accessibilityLabel = Accessibility.email.rawValue.localized
        field.CustomTextField.returnKeyType = .next
        return field
    }()

        private lazy var passwordTextField: CustomTextField = {
        let field =  CustomTextField(textColor: .White,
                                     isSecuredEntry: true,
                                     contentType: .password,
                                     textFieldLabel: Texts.password.rawValue)
        field.CustomTextField.delegate = self
        field.CustomTextField.accessibilityLabel = Accessibility.password.rawValue.localized
        field.CustomTextField.tag = 1
        return field
    }()
}

// MARK: - UITextFieldDelegate Methods
extension LoginView: UITextFieldDelegate {

public func textFieldShouldReturn(_ textField: UITextField) -> Bool {
    if textField == emailTextField.CustomTextField {
        passwordTextField.CustomTextField.becomeFirstResponder()
    } else if textField == passwordTextField.CustomTextField {
        textField.resignFirstResponder()
        delegate?.ReturnPassword(self)
    }
    return true
}
}

Behaviors

UserInteractionEnabled vs Enabled

If we want the textfield to be user intractable which is by default turned on.

• IsUserInteractionEnabled doesn’t change any background of the default textfield.
• isEnabled does change the background opacity to minimum and it results into a darker grayish disabled view.

private lazy var emailTextField: UITextField = {
       let field = UITextField()
       field.text = "Kautilya Save"
       field.isUserInteractionEnabled = false
       field.isEnabled = false
       field.backgroundColor = .gray
       return field
    }()

This behavior is valid until the custom UITextField class hasn’t been defined with its background color property.

self.backgroundColor = .clear

Then you would have to override the custom UITextField object with the backgroundColor property accordingly

emailTextField.backgroundColor = isEnabled ? .clear : .gray

SO