Placeholder in UITextView

Question

My application uses an UITextView. Now I want the UITextView to have a placeholder similar to the one you can set for an UITextField.<

Answer 1

this is how I did it:

UITextView2.h

#import 

@interface UITextView2 : UITextView  {
 NSString *placeholder;
 UIColor *placeholderColor;
}

@property(nonatomic, retain) NSString *placeholder;
@property(nonatomic, retain) UIColor *placeholderColor;

-(void)textChanged:(NSNotification*)notif;

@end

UITextView2.m

@implementation UITextView2

@synthesize placeholder, placeholderColor;

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame {
    if (self = [super initWithFrame:frame]) {
        [self setPlaceholder:@""];
        [self setPlaceholderColor:[UIColor lightGrayColor]];
        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(textChanged:) name:UITextViewTextDidChangeNotification object:nil];
    }
    return self;
}

-(void)textChanged:(NSNotification*)notif {
    if ([[self placeholder] length]==0)
        return;
    if ([[self text] length]==0) {
        [[self viewWithTag:999] setAlpha:1];
    } else {
        [[self viewWithTag:999] setAlpha:0];
    }

}

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    if ([[self placeholder] length]>0) {
        UILabel *l = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(8, 8, 0, 0)];
        [l setFont:self.font];
        [l setTextColor:self.placeholderColor];
        [l setText:self.placeholder];
        [l setAlpha:0];
        [l setTag:999];
        [self addSubview:l];
        [l sizeToFit];
        [self sendSubviewToBack:l];
        [l release];
    }
    if ([[self text] length]==0 && [[self placeholder] length]>0) {
        [[self viewWithTag:999] setAlpha:1];
    }
    [super drawRect:rect];
}

- (void)dealloc {
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self];
    [super dealloc];
}


@end