How to style UITextview to like Rounded Rect text field?

Question

I am using a text view as a comment composer.

In the properties inspector I can\'t find anything like a border style property so that I can make use a rounded rect,

Answer 1

I wanted the real deal, so I add UIImageView as a subview of the UITextView. This matches the native border on a UITextField, including the gradient from top to bottom:

textView.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
UIImageView *borderView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(0, 0, textView.frame.size.width, textView.frame.size.height)];
borderView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
UIImage *textFieldImage = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"TextField.png"] resizableImageWithCapInsets:UIEdgeInsetsMake(15, 8, 15, 8)];
borderView.image = textFieldImage;
[textField addSubview: borderView];
[textField sendSubviewToBack: borderView];

These are the images I use:

Answer 2

If you want to keep your controller code clean, you can subclass UITextView like below, and change the class name in the Interface Builder.

RoundTextView.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface RoundTextView : UITextView
@end

RoundTextView.m

#import "RoundTextView.h"
#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>
@implementation RoundTextView
-(id) initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder {
    if (self = [super initWithCoder:aDecoder]) {
        [self.layer setBorderColor:[[[UIColor grayColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:0.333] CGColor]];
        [self.layer setBorderWidth:1.0];
        self.layer.cornerRadius = 5;
        self.clipsToBounds = YES;
    }
    return self;
}
@end

Answer 3

For the best effect you have to use a custom (stretchable) background image. This is also how the UITextField's rounded border is drawn.

Answer 4

Swift 3 Version

After setting up the text view in interface builder.

@IBOutlet weak var textView: UITextView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    textView.layer.cornerRadius = 5     
    textView.layer.borderColor = UIColor.gray.withAlphaComponent(0.5).cgColor
    textView.layer.borderWidth = 0.5  
    textView.clipsToBounds = true
}

Swift 2.2 Version

@IBOutlet weak var textView: UITextView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    textView.layer.cornerRadius = 5     
    textView.layer.borderColor = UIColor.grayColor().colorWithAlphaComponent(0.5).CGColor
    textView.layer.borderWidth = 0.5  
    textView.clipsToBounds = true
}

Answer 5

You can create a Text Field that doesn't accept any events on top of a Text View like this:

CGRect frameRect = descriptionTextField.frame;
frameRect.size.height = 50;
descriptionTextField.frame = frameRect;
descriptionTextView.frame = frameRect;
descriptionTextField.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
descriptionTextField.enabled = NO;
descriptionTextView.layer.cornerRadius = 5;
descriptionTextView.clipsToBounds = YES;

Answer 6

I know there are already a lot of answers to this one, but I didn't really find any of them sufficient (at least in Swift). I wanted a solution that provided the same exact border as a UITextField (not an approximated one that looks sort of like it looks right now, but one that looks exactly like it and will always look exactly like it). I needed to use a UITextField to back the UITextView for the background, but didn't want to have to create that separately every time.

The solution below is a UITextView that supplies it's own UITextField for the border. This is a trimmed down version of my full solution (which adds "placeholder" support to the UITextView in a similar way) and was posted here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36561236/1227119

// This class implements a UITextView that has a UITextField behind it, where the 
// UITextField provides the border.
//
class TextView : UITextView, UITextViewDelegate
{
    var textField = TextField();

    required init?(coder: NSCoder)
    {
        fatalError("This class doesn't support NSCoding.")
    }

    override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?)
    {
        super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer);

        self.delegate = self;

        // Create a background TextField with clear (invisible) text and disabled
        self.textField.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyle.RoundedRect;
        self.textField.textColor = UIColor.clearColor();
        self.textField.userInteractionEnabled = false;

        self.addSubview(textField);
        self.sendSubviewToBack(textField);
    }

    convenience init()
    {
        self.init(frame: CGRectZero, textContainer: nil)
    }

    override func layoutSubviews()
    {
        super.layoutSubviews()
        // Do not scroll the background textView
        self.textField.frame = CGRectMake(0, self.contentOffset.y, self.frame.width, self.frame.height);
    }

    // UITextViewDelegate - Note: If you replace delegate, your delegate must call this
    func scrollViewDidScroll(scrollView: UIScrollView)
    {
        // Do not scroll the background textView
        self.textField.frame = CGRectMake(0, self.contentOffset.y, self.frame.width, self.frame.height);
    }        
}