Placeholder in UITextView

Question

My application uses an UITextView. Now I want the UITextView to have a placeholder similar to the one you can set for an UITextField.<

Answer 1

Easy way, just create placeholder text in UITextView by using the following UITextViewDelegate methods:

- (void)textViewDidBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView
{
    if ([textView.text isEqualToString:@"placeholder text here..."]) {
         textView.text = @"";
         textView.textColor = [UIColor blackColor]; //optional
    }
    [textView becomeFirstResponder];
}

- (void)textViewDidEndEditing:(UITextView *)textView
{
    if ([textView.text isEqualToString:@""]) {
        textView.text = @"placeholder text here...";
        textView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor]; //optional
    }
    [textView resignFirstResponder];
}

just remember to set myUITextView with the exact text on creation e.g.

UITextView *myUITextView = [[UITextView alloc] init];
myUITextView.delegate = self;
myUITextView.text = @"placeholder text here...";
myUITextView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor]; //optional

and make the parent class a UITextViewDelegate before including these methods e.g.

@interface MyClass () <UITextViewDelegate>
@end

Code for Swift 3.1

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) 
{
    if (textView.text == "placeholder text here..." && textView.textColor == .lightGray)
    {
        textView.text = ""
        textView.textColor = .black
    }
    textView.becomeFirstResponder() //Optional
}

func textViewDidEndEditing(_ textView: UITextView)
{
    if (textView.text == "")
    {
        textView.text = "placeholder text here..."
        textView.textColor = .lightGray
    }
    textView.resignFirstResponder()
}

just remember to set myUITextView with the exact text on creation e.g.

 let myUITextView = UITextView.init()
 myUITextView.delegate = self
 myUITextView.text = "placeholder text here..."
 myUITextView.textColor = .lightGray

and make the parent class a UITextViewDelegate before including these methods e.g.

class MyClass: UITextViewDelegate
{

}

Answer 2

I found myself a very easy way to imitate a place-holder

1. in the NIB or code set your textView's textColor to lightGrayColor (most of the time)
2. make sure that your textView's delegate is linked to file's owner and implement UITextViewDelegate in your header file
3. set the default text of your text view to (example: "Foobar placeholder")
4. implement: (BOOL) textViewShouldBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView

Edit:

Changed if statements to compare tags rather than text. If the user deleted their text it was possible to also accidentally delete a portion of the place holder @"Foobar placeholder".This meant if the user re-entered the textView the following delegate method, -(BOOL) textViewShouldBeginEditing:(UITextView *) textView, it would not work as expected. I tried comparing by the color of the text in the if statement but found that light grey color set in interface builder is not the same as light grey color set in code with [UIColor lightGreyColor]

- (BOOL) textViewShouldBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView
{
    if(textView.tag == 0) {
        textView.text = @"";
        textView.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
        textView.tag = 1;
    }
    return YES;
}

It is also possible to reset the placeholder text when the keyboard returns and the [textView length] == 0

EDIT:

Just to make the last part clearer - here's is how you can set the placeholder text back:

- (void)textViewDidChange:(UITextView *)textView
{
   if([textView.text length] == 0)
   {
       textView.text = @"Foobar placeholder";
       textView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
       textView.tag = 0;
   }
}

Answer 3

Lets make it easy

Create one UILabel and place it on your text view(Give the text as Placeholder-set color gray-you can do all this in your xib) Now in you header file declare the UILabel and also the the textviewDelegate Now you can simply hide the label when you click on the textview

complete code below

header

@interface ViewController :UIViewController<UITextViewDelegate>{
 }
   @property (nonatomic,strong) IBOutlet UILabel *PlceHolder_label;
   @property (nonatomic,strong) IBOutlet UITextView *TextView;

@end

implementation

@implementation UploadFoodImageViewController
@synthesize PlceHolder_label,TextView;

  - (void)viewDidLoad
    {
       [super viewDidLoad];
    }


 - (BOOL)textViewShouldBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView{

       if([textView isEqual:TextView]){
            [PlceHolder_label setHidden:YES];
            [self.tabScrlVw setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0,150) animated:YES];
          }
      return YES;
    }

@end

Dont forget to connect the textView and UILabel to filesowner from xib

Answer 4

You can set the label on the UITextView by

[UITextView addSubView:lblPlaceHoldaer];

and hide it on TextViewdidChange method.

This is the simple & easy way.

Answer 5

Simple Swift 3 solution

Add UITextViewDelegate to your class

Set yourTextView.delegate = self

Create placeholderLabel and position it inside yourTextView

Now just animate placeholderLabel.alpha on textViewDidChange:

  func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
    let newAlpha: CGFloat = textView.text.isEmpty ? 1 : 0
    if placeholderLabel.alpha != newAlpha {
      UIView.animate(withDuration: 0.3) {
        self.placeholderLabel.alpha = newAlpha
      }
    }
  }

you might have to play with placeholderLabel position to set it up right, but that shouldn't be too hard

Answer 6

I recommend to use SZTextView.

https://github.com/glaszig/SZTextView

Add your default UITextView from storyboard and then change its custom class to SZTextView like below