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

Question

I have been searching this for hours but I\'ve failed. I probably don\'t even know what I should be looking for.

Many applications have text and in this text are web

Answer 1

Drop-in solution as a category on UILabel (this assumes your UILabel uses an attributed string with some NSLinkAttributeName attributes in it):

@implementation UILabel (Support)

- (BOOL)openTappedLinkAtLocation:(CGPoint)location {
  CGSize labelSize = self.bounds.size;

  NSTextContainer* textContainer = [[NSTextContainer alloc] initWithSize:CGSizeZero];
  textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0;
  textContainer.lineBreakMode = self.lineBreakMode;
  textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = self.numberOfLines;
  textContainer.size = labelSize;

  NSLayoutManager* layoutManager = [[NSLayoutManager alloc] init];
  [layoutManager addTextContainer:textContainer];

  NSTextStorage* textStorage = [[NSTextStorage alloc] initWithAttributedString:self.attributedText];
  [textStorage addAttribute:NSFontAttributeName value:self.font range:NSMakeRange(0, textStorage.length)];
  [textStorage addLayoutManager:layoutManager];

  CGRect textBoundingBox = [layoutManager usedRectForTextContainer:textContainer];
  CGPoint textContainerOffset = CGPointMake((labelSize.width - textBoundingBox.size.width) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.x,
                                            (labelSize.height - textBoundingBox.size.height) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.y);
  CGPoint locationOfTouchInTextContainer = CGPointMake(location.x - textContainerOffset.x, location.y - textContainerOffset.y);
  NSInteger indexOfCharacter = [layoutManager characterIndexForPoint:locationOfTouchInTextContainer inTextContainer:textContainer fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints:nullptr];
  if (indexOfCharacter >= 0) {
    NSURL* url = [textStorage attribute:NSLinkAttributeName atIndex:indexOfCharacter effectiveRange:nullptr];
    if (url) {
      [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:url];
      return YES;
    }
  }
  return NO;
}

@end