how do I detect and make clickable links in a UILabel NOT using UITextView

Question

I am building a chat app and for performance reasons I need to use UILabel\'s instead of UITextView\'s to display the chat messages. I have previously used TextView\'s but

Answer 1

Reference source -

Create tap-able "links" in the NSAttributedString of a UILabel?

It is Converted into swift 4.0

Try this -

Create a sub class for UILabel like below -

Swift 4.0

class CustomLabel: UILabel {

let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()
let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: CGSize.zero)
var textStorage = NSTextStorage() {
    didSet {
        textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)
    }
}
var onCharacterTapped: ((_ label: UILabel, _ characterIndex: Int) -> Void)?

let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer()

override var attributedText: NSAttributedString? {
    didSet {
        if let attributedText = attributedText {
            textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: attributedText)
        } else {
            textStorage = NSTextStorage()
        }
    }
}
override var lineBreakMode: NSLineBreakMode {
    didSet {
        textContainer.lineBreakMode = lineBreakMode
    }
}

override var numberOfLines: Int {
    didSet {
        textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = numberOfLines
    }
}

required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
    super.init(coder: aDecoder)
    setUp()
}

override init(frame: CGRect) {
    super.init(frame: frame)
    setUp()
}
func setUp() {
    isUserInteractionEnabled = true
    layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)
    textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0
    textContainer.lineBreakMode = lineBreakMode
    textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = numberOfLines
    tapGesture.addTarget(self, action: #selector(CustomLabel.labelTapped(_:)))
    addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)
}

override func layoutSubviews() {
    super.layoutSubviews()
    textContainer.size = bounds.size
}

@objc func labelTapped(_ gesture: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
    guard gesture.state == .ended else {
        return
    }
    let locationOfTouch = gesture.location(in: gesture.view)
    let textBoundingBox = layoutManager.usedRect(for: textContainer)
    let textContainerOffset = CGPoint(x: (bounds.width - textBoundingBox.width) / 2 - textBoundingBox.minX,
                                      y: (bounds.height - textBoundingBox.height) / 2 - textBoundingBox.minY)
    let locationOfTouchInTextContainer = CGPoint(x: locationOfTouch.x - textContainerOffset.x, y: locationOfTouch.y - textContainerOffset.y)
    let indexOfCharacter = layoutManager.characterIndex(for: locationOfTouchInTextContainer,
                                                        in: textContainer,  fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints: nil)

    onCharacterTapped?(self, indexOfCharacter)
 }

}

Within your viewDidLoad method of View controller create an instance of that class like below -

    override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.

    let label = CustomLabel()
    label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
    view.addSubview(label)
    view.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraint.constraints(withVisualFormat: "V:|-[view]-|",
                                                       options: [], metrics: nil, views: ["view" : label]))
    view.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraint.constraints(withVisualFormat: "H:|-[view]-|",
                                                       options: [], metrics: nil, views: ["view" : label]))

    let attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "String with a link", attributes: nil)
    let linkRange = NSMakeRange(14, 4); // for the word "link" in the string above

    let linkAttributes: [NSAttributedStringKey : AnyObject] = [
        NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor : UIColor.blue, NSAttributedStringKey.underlineStyle : NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle.rawValue as AnyObject,
        NSAttributedStringKey.link: "http://www.apple.com" as AnyObject ]
    attributedString.setAttributes(linkAttributes, range:linkRange)

    label.attributedText = attributedString

    label.onCharacterTapped = { label, characterIndex in

        // DO YOUR STUFF HERE
    }
}