Texty

Texty's goal is to make styling text clean and easy. This is accomplished using things like style containers, styled label initializers, and string styling via XML-like tags.

Created and maintained by Vectorform, LLC.

Requirements:

• iOS 13.0+
• Xcode 10.0+
• Swift 5.0+

Installation

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Cocoa projects. You can install it with the following command:

$ gem install cocoapods

CocoaPods 1.0.0+ is required to build Texty.

To integrate Texty into your Xcode project using CocoaPods, specify it in your Podfile:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
platform :ios, '10.0'
use_frameworks!

target '<Your Target Name>' do
    pod 'Texty', '~> 0.2.6'
end

Then, run the following command:

$ pod install

Carthage

Carthage is a decentralized dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks.

You can install Carthage with Homebrew using the following command:

$ brew update
$ brew install carthage

To integrate Texty into your Xcode project using Carthage, specify it in your Cartfile:

github "Vectorform/Texty" ~> 0.2.7

Run carthage update to build the framework and drag the built Texty.framework into your Xcode project.

Manually

If you prefer not to use any of the listed dependency managers, you can integrate Texty into your project manually.

---

Usage

Creating styles

The TextStyle class was designed to be created once and reused across your entire application. If you need to manipulate a TextStyle without affecting the original, you'll need to use the copy initializer UITextStyle(with: TextStyle)

/// Create static references to reusable styles
struct Style {
    static let Header1: TextStyle = TextStyle(attributes: [.foregroundColor : UIColor.black, .font : UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 24.0)])

    static let Header2: TextStyle = TextStyle(attributes: [.foregroundColor : UIColor.black, .font : UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 20.0)])

    static let Normal: TextStyle = TextStyle(attributes: [.foregroundColor : UIColor.black, .font : UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 17.0)])

    static let Underline: TextStyle = TextStyle(attributes: [TextAttribute.underlineStyle : NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle])
}

/// Reuse your defined styles across your entire application
class ViewController: UIViewController {
    private let headerLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Header1)
    private let textLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Normal)
}

Available attributes

TextAttribute	Expected Type	Native Equivalent
attachment	NSTextAttachment	NSAttributedStringKey.attachment
backgroundColor	UIColor	NSAttributedStringKey.backgroundColor
baselineOffset	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.baselineOffset
expansion	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.expansion
font	UIFont	NSAttributedStringKey.font
foregroundColor	UIColor	NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor
kern	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.kern
ligature	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.ligature
link	NSURL or NSString	NSAttributedStringKey.link
obliqueness	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.obliqueness
paragraphStyle	NSParagraphStyle	NSAttributedStringKey.paragraphStyle
shadow	NSShadow	NSAttributedStringKey.shadow
strikethroughColor	UIColor	NSAttributedStringKey.strikethroughColor
strikethroughStyle	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.strikethroughStyle
strokeColor	UIColor	NSAttributedStringKey.strokeColor
strokeWidth	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.strokeWidth
textEffect	NSString	NSAttributedStringKey.textEffect
underlineColor	UIColor	NSAttributedStringKey.underlineColor
underlineStyle	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.underlineStyle
verticalGlyphForm	NSNumber	NSAttributedStringKey.verticalGlyphForm
writingDirection	Array<NSNumber>	NSAttributedStringKey.writingDirection

More information about each attribute can be found in Apple's documentation.

TextyLabel

TextyLabel is a subclass of UILabel created specifically to work with TextStyle objects. The core power of TextyLabel comes from its initializer. TextyLabel will create a copy of the TextStyle object.

let titleLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Header1)

You can manipulate or replace the style later using the style property.

Be careful when subclassing TextyLabel as some properties are overriden to be referenced from the associated style object rather than their native locations.

Subclassing TextyLabel and overriding one of these properties without calling the super class will result in undefined behavior.

Property	Overriden Target
font	style.font
lineBreakMode	style.paragraphStyle.lineBreakMode
text	attributedText
textAlignment	style.paragraphStyle.alignment
textColor	style.foregroundColor

TextyButton

TextyButton is a subclass of UIButton created specifically to work with TextStyle objects. TextyButton can be initialized in the same way as TextyLabel. Internally this will be used as the style for all button states. TextyButton will create a copy of the TextStyle object.

let button: TextyButton = TextyButton(style: Style.Header1)

You can manipulate or replace the styles later using the following functions:

style(for state: UIControlState)
setStyle(_ style: TextStyle, for state: UIControlState)

Be careful when subclassing TextyButton as some properties are overriden to be referenced from the associated style object rather than their native locations.

Subclassing TextyButton and overriding one of these properties without calling the super class will result in undefined behavior.

Function	Overriden Target
setTitle(_ title: String?, for state: UIControlState)	setAttributedTitle(_ title: NSAttributedString?, for state: UIControlState)
title(for state: UIControlState)	attributedTitle(for: state)
setTitleColor(_ color: UIColor?, for state: UIControlState)	style(for: state).foregroundColor
titleColor(for state: UIControlState)	style(for: state).foregroundColor
setTitleShadowColor(_ color: UIColor?, for state: UIControlState)	style(for: state).shadow
titleShadowColor(for state: UIControlState)	style(for: state).shadow

TextyTextView

TextyTextView is a subclass of UITextView created specifically to work with TextStyle objects. The core power of TextyTextView comes from its initializer. TextyTextView will create a copy of the TextStyle object.

let titleLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Header1)

TextyTextView does not currently support editing text so you should have isEditable set to false.

You can manipulate or replace the style later using the style property.

Be careful when subclassing TextyTextView as some properties are overriden to be referenced from the associated style object rather than their native locations.

Subclassing TextyTextView and overriding one of these properties without calling the super class will result in undefined behavior.

Property	Overriden Target
font	style.font
lineBreakMode	style.paragraphStyle.lineBreakMode
text	attributedText
textAlignment	style.paragraphStyle.alignment
textColor	style.foregroundColor

Styling text via tags

Texty provides the ability to style parts of a string using XML-like tags within the string.

let titleLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Header1)
self.titleLabel.style.setStyle(Style.Underline, forTag: "underline")
self.titleLabel.text = "This is a <underline>TextyLabel</underline>"

You can also forego creating a TextStyle and use an attribute dictionary instead.

let titleLabel: TextyLabel = TextyLabel(style: Style.Header1)
self.titleLabel.style.setAttributes([TextAttribute.underlineStyle : NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle.rawValue], forTag: "underline")
self.titleLabel.text = "This is a <underline>TextyLabel</underline>"

Unlike XML, tags do not have to be balanced. For example, the following string is valid (given that the bold and italic tags are defined):

This is <italic>an example <bold>string used</italic> for demonstration</bold> purposes.

It is important that your closing tags have the forward slash at the beginning and not the end.

Good	Bad
</bold>	<bold/>

Forward slashes at the end of a tag will cause the tag to be detected as a short tag, which will have a use in the future, but currently offers nothing.

There is currently no way to escape tags within a string - all tags will be stripped during the styling process.

---

Credits

Igor Efremov, igor@efremov.io

Jeff Meador, jmeador@vectorform.com

License

Texty is available under the BSD-3-Clause License. See the LICENSE file for more info.