How to change an UILabel/UIFont's letter spacing?

Question

I\'ve searched loads already and couldn\'t find an answer.

I have a normal UILabel, defined this way:

    UILabel *totalColors = [[[UILabel alloc] in         


        

Answer 1

I've extended UILabel to change the character spacing. This should work out the box and pulls font, text, color etc from the UILabel itself (proper coding!).

You may notice I draw the text twice, first with clear color. This is to auto center the text in the label. Whilst this may be inefficient - isn't it nice to be auto centered?

Enjoy!

@interface RALabel : UILabel {
}
@end  

@implementation RALabel 

- (void) drawRect:(CGRect)rect 
{

    // Drawing code

    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    CGContextSelectFont (context, [self.font.fontName cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding], self.font.pointSize, kCGEncodingMacRoman);
    CGContextSetCharacterSpacing(context, 1);
    CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(context, [[UIColor clearColor] CGColor]);
    CGAffineTransform myTextTransform = CGAffineTransformScale(CGAffineTransformIdentity, 1.f, -1.f );
    CGContextSetTextMatrix (context, myTextTransform);

    // draw 1 but invisbly to get the string length.
    CGPoint p =CGContextGetTextPosition(context);
    float centeredY = (self.font.pointSize + (self.frame.size.height- self.font.pointSize)/2)-2;
    CGContextShowTextAtPoint(context, 0, centeredY, [self.text cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding], [self.text length]);
    CGPoint v =CGContextGetTextPosition(context);

    // calculate width and draw second one.
    float width = v.x - p.x;
    float centeredX =(self.frame.size.width- width)/2;
    CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(context, [self.textColor CGColor]);
    CGContextShowTextAtPoint(context, centeredX, centeredY, [self.text cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding], [self.text length]);

}