Set text color and font for UIDatePicker in iOS8/Swift

Question

I\'ve been having trouble trying to set the UIDatePicker font and color. Everything else in my app was fairly straightforward to adjust except

Answer 1

try this:

    /* set color for UIDatePicker font */

    //text color of today string
    self.datePicker.performSelector("setHighlightsToday:", withObject:Constants.Colors.mainHeaderColor)

    //text color for hoglighted color
    self.datePicker.performSelector("_setHighlightColor:", withObject:Constants.Colors.mainHeaderColor)

    //other text color
    self.datePicker.setValue(Constants.Colors.mainHeaderColor, forKey: "textColor")

Answer 2

The only way for changing the font of UIDatePickerView (until now) is swizzling:

you can change the font by an extension of UILabel! (this is not recommended but it works!)

import Foundation
import UIKit

public extension UILabel {

    @objc func setFontSwizzled(font: UIFont) {
        if self.shouldOverride() {
            self.setFontSwizzled(font: UIFont.fontWith(style: .regular, size: 14))
        } else {
            self.setFontSwizzled(font: font)
        }
    }

    private func shouldOverride() -> Bool {
        let classes = ["UIDatePicker", "UIDatePickerWeekMonthDayView", "UIDatePickerContentView"]
        var view = self.superview
        while view != nil {
            let className = NSStringFromClass(type(of: view!))
            if classes.contains(className) {
                return true
            }
            view = view!.superview
        }
        return false
    }

    private static let swizzledSetFontImplementation: Void = {
        let instance: UILabel = UILabel()
        let aClass: AnyClass! = object_getClass(instance)
        let originalMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(aClass, #selector(setter: font))
        let swizzledMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(aClass, #selector(setFontSwizzled))

        if let originalMethod = originalMethod, let swizzledMethod = swizzledMethod {
            // switch implementation..
            method_exchangeImplementations(originalMethod, swizzledMethod)
        }
    }()

    static func swizzleSetFont() {
        _ = self.swizzledSetFontImplementation
    }
}

and for changing the color you just simply call the function below:

datePicker.setValue(UIColor.whiteColor(), forKeyPath: "textColor")

if it's necessary to be re-rendered you need to call:

datePicker.datePickerMode = .CountDownTimer
datePicker.datePickerMode = .DateAndTime //or whatever your original mode was

Answer 3

Swift 4

override func layoutSubviews() {
    super.layoutSubviews()

    datePickerView.setValue(UIColor.white, forKeyPath: "textColor")
}

Answer 4

I ran into a similar issue with the latest SwiftUI / Swift 5 on XCode 11. All of the options above did not work and the DatePicker either stayed black text or crashed.

In your SwiftUI file set init() before var body

init() {
    UIDatePicker.appearance().backgroundColor = .clear
}

Then in your var body view do this

DatePicker(selection: $dob, in: ...Date(), displayedComponents: .date) {
   Text("Select Date")
}.colorInvert()

That inverted the black text to be white using the iOS Dark Theme. Looks/works great. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

You can use extensions to get and set textColor like bellow

extension UIDatePicker {

    var textColor: UIColor? {
        set {
            setValue(newValue, forKeyPath: "textColor")
        }
        get {
            return value(forKeyPath: "textColor") as? UIColor
        }
    }

}

And then set the color:

datePicker.textColor = .red

Answer 6

I saw the issue you were having and was having a similar issue. Using Xcode 6.3.1 I used this code in mine and worked great:

myPicker.backgroundColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

In case this helps.