Objective C Attributed Strings

We can only apply one font style and color to a static text using strings while displaying in UILabel. What if we need to highlight some thing in the static text we want to display. Like a folder has been renamed in the server and we need to notify the user about this change.

Using NSString we can display in a single color like shown below.

  myLabel.text = @"folder_old has been renamed to folder_new.";

folder_old has been renamed to folder_new.   

In this case, We need to highlight both old name and new names of the folder as shown below.

folder_old has been renamed to folder_new.

We can do this using the NSAttributed string.

                         

Here is the Objective C code do this.

 - (NSAttributedString *)getAttributedStringWithOldItemName:(NSString *)oldName andNewName:    
                                                                                                                     (NSString *)newName

 {

    

    NSString *staticText = @" has been renamed to ";

    

    NSString *fullText = [[oldName stringByAppendingString:staticText] 

                                                               stringByAppendingString:newName];

    

    // Define general attributes for the entire text

    NSDictionary *attribs = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:[UIColor 

            blackColor],NSForegroundColorAttributeName,

            [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialMT" size:16],NSFontAttributeName, nil];

                                                                               

    

    NSMutableAttributedString *attributedText =

                    [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:fullText

                                                                                 attributes:attribs];

    

    // Old Name text attributes

    NSRange oldNameTextRange = NSMakeRange(0, oldName.length);

    

    [attributedText setAttributes:[[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:

             [UIColor redColor],NSForegroundColorAttributeName,             

             [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialMT" size:16],NSFontAttributeName, nil]

                                                                             range:oldNameTextRange];

                                                                                          

    

    

    // has been renamed to attributes

    NSRange staticTextRange = [fullText rangeOfString:staticText];

    

    [attributedText setAttributes: [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys: 

                             [UIColor darkGrayColor],NSForegroundColorAttributeName, 

                             [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialMT" size:16],

                             NSFontAttributeName, nil] range:staticTextRange];

                                                                                                

    

    //New Name text attributes

    NSRange newNameRange = [fullText rangeOfString:newName];

    

    [attributedText setAttributes: [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:                
                                        [UIColor blueColor],NSForegroundColorAttributeName,                

                                        [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialMT" size:16],NSFontAttributeName, nil]

                                        range:newNameRange];                                                                                                                          

    

    return attributedText;

 } 

NSAttributedString is having attributes param, using which we can customize text color and font of a sub string in our full string as shown in the above code. We can range of our substring and assign our required color and font.

I have applied blue color to my folder old name and red color to my folder new name. In that way I am highlighting my required substrings in a string.

Now I can assign it o my label using the attributedText parameter of the UILabel as shown below.

  self.attLabel.attributedText = 
                [self getAttributedStringWithOldItemName:@"folder_old" andNewName:@"folder_new"];

There are different attributes which we can customize. We can strike a text, we can apply background color, we can apply underline etc...

Here are different attributes available as per the Apple documentation(NSAttributedString.h).

 NSFontAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0);

 NSParagraphStyleAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSForegroundColorAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSBackgroundColorAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0);

 NSLigatureAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSKernAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0);   

 NSStrikethroughStyleAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSStrokeColorAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSStrokeWidthAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); 

 NSShadowAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0);

 NSTextEffectAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);

 NSAttachmentAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0); 

 NSLinkAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);

 NSBaselineOffsetAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0); 

 NSUnderlineColorAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0); 

 NSStrikethroughColorAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);  

 NSObliquenessAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);  

 NSExpansionAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);  

 NSWritingDirectionAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);   

 NSVerticalGlyphFormAttributeName NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0);   

Hope this post is useful. Feel free to comment in case of any queries.