ActiveLabel.swift

Textfield

ActiveLabel.swift

November 23, 2023

UILabel drop-in replacement supporting Hashtags (#), Mentions (@), URLs (http://), Emails and custom regex patterns, written in Swift

Features

Swift 5.0 (1.1.0+) and 4.2 (1.0.1)
Default support for Hashtags, Mentions, Links, Emails
Support for custom types via regex
Ability to enable highlighting only for the desired types
Ability to trim urls
Super easy to use and lightweight
Works as UILabel drop-in replacement
Well tested and documented

Install (iOS 10 +)

Carthage

Add the following to your Cartfile and follow these instructions


                                              
                                                github “optonaut/ActiveLabel.swift”

CocoaPods

CocoaPods 0.36 adds supports for Swift and embedded frameworks. To integrate ActiveLabel into your project add the following to your Podfile:


                                              
                                                platform :ios, ‘10.0’

use_frameworks!
pod ‘ActiveLabel’

Usage


                                              
                                                import ActiveLabel
let label = ActiveLabel()

label.numberOfLines = 0

label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email]

label.text = “This is a post with #hashtags and a @userhandle.”

label.textColor = .black

label.handleHashtagTap { hashtag in

print(“Success. You just tapped the \(hashtag) hashtag”)

}

Custom types


                                              
                                                let customType = ActiveType.custom(pattern: “\\swith\\b”) //Regex that looks for “with”

label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email, customType]

label.text = “This is a post with #hashtags and a @userhandle.”

label.customColor[customType] = UIColor.purple

label.customSelectedColor[customType] = UIColor.green

label.handleCustomTap(for: customType) { element in

print(“Custom type tapped: \(element)”)

}

Enable/disable highlighting

By default, an ActiveLabel instance has the following configuration


                                              
                                                label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email]

But feel free to enable/disable to fit your requirements

Batched customization

When using ActiveLabel, it is recommended to use the customize(block:) method to customize it. The reason is that ActiveLabel is reacting to each property that you set. So if you set 3 properties, the textContainer is refreshed 3 times.

When using customize(block:), you can group all the customizations on the label, that way ActiveLabel is only going to refresh the textContainer once.

Example:


                                              
                                                label.customize { label in

label.text = “This is a post with #multiple #hashtags and a @userhandle.”

label.textColor = UIColor(red: 102.0/255, green: 117.0/255, blue: 127.0/255, alpha: 1)

label.hashtagColor = UIColor(red: 85.0/255, green: 172.0/255, blue: 238.0/255, alpha: 1)

label.mentionColor = UIColor(red: 238.0/255, green: 85.0/255, blue: 96.0/255, alpha: 1)

label.URLColor = UIColor(red: 85.0/255, green: 238.0/255, blue: 151.0/255, alpha: 1)

label.handleMentionTap { self.alert(“Mention”, message: $0) }

label.handleHashtagTap { self.alert(“Hashtag”, message: $0) }

label.handleURLTap { self.alert(“URL”, message: $0.absoluteString) }

}

Trim long urls

You have the possiblity to set the maximum lenght a url can have;


                                              
                                                label.urlMaximumLength = 30

From now on, a url that’s bigger than that, will be trimmed.

https://afancyurl.com/whatever -> https://afancyurl.com/wh...

API

mentionColor : UIColor = .blueColor()

mentionSelectedColor : UIColor?

hashtagColor : UIColor = .blueColor()

hashtagSelectedColor : UIColor?

URLColor : UIColor = .blueColor()

URLSelectedColor : UIColor?

customColor : [ActiveType : UIColor]

customSelectedColor : [ActiveType : UIColor]

lineSpacing : Float?

handleMentionTap: (string) ->()


                                              
                                                label.handleMentionTap { userHandle in print(“\(userHandle) tapped”) }

handleHashtagTap: (String) ->()


                                              
                                                label.handleHashtagTap { hashtag in print(“\(hashtag) tapped”) }

handleURL Tap : (NSURL) -> ()


                                              
                                                label.handleURLTap { url in UIApplication.shared.openURL(url) }

handleEmailTap : (String) -> ()


                                              
                                                label.handleEmailTap { email in print(“\(email) tapped”) }

handleCustomTap(for type: ActiveType, handler : (String) – >())


                                              
                                                label.handleCustomTap(for: customType) { element in print(“\(element) tapped”) }

filterHashtag: (String) – > Bool


                                              
                                                label.filterHashtag { hashtag in validHashtags.contains(hashtag) }

filterMention : (String) -> Bool


                                              
                                                label.filterMention { mention in validMentions.contains(mention) }

Alternatives

Before writing ActiveLabel we’ve tried a lot of the following alternatives but weren’t quite satisfied with the quality level or ease of usage, so we decided to contribute our own solution.

TTTAttributedLabel (ObjC) – A drop-in replacement for UILabel that supports attributes, data detectors, links, and more
STTweetLabel (ObjC) – A UILabel with #hashtag @handle and links tappable
AMAttributedHighlightLabel (ObjC) – A UILabel subclass with mention/hashtag/link highlighting
KILabel (ObjC) – A simple to use drop in replacement for UILabel for iOS 7 and above that highlights links such as URLs, twitter style usernames and hashtags and makes them touchable

GitHub

View Github

#swift