Swift : tap on a part of text of UILabel

Question

I have a problem that \"boundingRectForGlyphRange\" always returns CGRect.zero \"0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0\". \"boundingRectForGlyphRange\" is not working. For example, I am coding

Answer 1

After having several issues with this kind of stuff, using a lot of different librairies, etc... I found an interesting solution: http://samwize.com/2016/03/04/how-to-create-multiple-tappable-links-in-a-uilabel/

It's about to extend UITapGestureRegonizer and detect if the tap is in the range of the string when triggered.

Here is the updated Swift 4 version of this extension:

extension UITapGestureRecognizer {

    func didTapAttributedTextInLabel(label: UILabel, inRange targetRange: NSRange) -> Bool {
        // Create instances of NSLayoutManager, NSTextContainer and NSTextStorage
        let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()
        let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: CGSize.zero)
        let textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: label.attributedText!)

        // Configure layoutManager and textStorage
        layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)
        textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)

        // Configure textContainer
        textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0
        textContainer.lineBreakMode = label.lineBreakMode
        textContainer.maximumNumberOfLines = label.numberOfLines
        let labelSize = label.bounds.size
        textContainer.size = labelSize

        // Find the tapped character location and compare it to the specified range
        let locationOfTouchInLabel = self.location(in: label)
        let textBoundingBox = layoutManager.usedRect(for: textContainer)

        let textContainerOffset = CGPoint(x: (labelSize.width - textBoundingBox.size.width) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.x, y: (labelSize.height - textBoundingBox.size.height) * 0.5 - textBoundingBox.origin.y)

        let locationOfTouchInTextContainer = CGPoint(x: locationOfTouchInLabel.x - textContainerOffset.x, y: locationOfTouchInLabel.y - textContainerOffset.y)
        let indexOfCharacter = layoutManager.characterIndex(for: locationOfTouchInTextContainer, in: textContainer, fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints: nil)
        return NSLocationInRange(indexOfCharacter, targetRange)
    }

}

To simplify range conversion, you also need this Range extension

extension Range where Bound == String.Index {
    var nsRange:NSRange {
        return NSRange(location: self.lowerBound.encodedOffset,
                   length: self.upperBound.encodedOffset -
                    self.lowerBound.encodedOffset)
    }
}

Once you have this extension, you can add a tap gesture to your label:

let tap = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(tapLabel(tap:)))
self.yourLabel.addGestureRecognizer(tap)
self.yourLabel.isUserInteractionEnabled = true

Here is the function to handle the tap:

@objc func tapLabel(tap: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
    guard let range = self.yourLabel.text?.range(of: "Substring to detect")?.nsRange else {
        return
    }
    if tap.didTapAttributedTextInLabel(label: self.yourLabel, inRange: range) {
        // Substring tapped
    }
}