151 Views 4 Replies
      Latest reply on Aug 14, 2019 10:16 AM by Claude31
      Albinus Level 1 Level 1 (0 points)
      Albinus Aug 14, 2019 9:06 AM

        I'm trying to set up a text view to show lines of text, along with line numbers on the right margin. The string for the text view would look something like this:

         

        "Text of first line" + "Line 1" + "\n" + "Text of second line" + "Line 2" + "\n"

         

        I want the end result to look something like this:

         

        Into my heart an air that kills,                               1

        From yon far country blows:                                2

        What are those blue remembered hills,               3

        What spires, what farms are those?                    4

         

        (Sorry about the crooked right column: it looked fine in the message editor. The numbers should all be in a straight column, aligned to the right margin of the text view.)

         

        Is it possible to use an NSAttributedString to do this? I've tried several different ways of constructing such a string, but no luck so far. I'm beginning to think this is the wrong approach entirely. What is the best way to get the kind of layout that I want?

        • Tags:
        • Re: NSAttributedString: left and right alignment
          DelawareMathGuy Level 3 Level 3 (110 points)
          DelawareMathGuy Aug 14, 2019 10:16 AM (in response to Albinus)

          hi Albinus,

           

          using some code i was looking at yesterday (you may recognize it), you can do this with tabStops.  i did exactly what you asked, but placing the text in a 4-line label as white text on a blue background ("testLabel" was set up as an @IBOutlet in a storyboard and this code is executed on viewWillAppear())

           

          testLabel.backgroundColor = UIColor.blue
testLabel.numberOfLines = 4

let myStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
let labelWidth = testLabel.frame.size.width
myStyle.tabStops = [NSTextTab(textAlignment: .left, location: 0.0, options: [:]),
  NSTextTab(textAlignment: .right, location: labelWidth, options: [:])]


let tabChar = "\t"
let returnChar = "\r"

let content = "Into my heart an air that kills" + tabChar + "1" + returnChar +
  "From yon far country blows:" + tabChar + "2" + returnChar +
  "What are those blue remembered hills" + tabChar + "3" + returnChar +
  "What spires, what farms are those?" + tabChar + "4" + returnChar


let attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key: Any] = [.foregroundColor: UIColor.white]
let attrString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: content, attributes: attributes)
attrString.addAttribute(.paragraphStyle, value: myStyle, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: content.count-1))
testLabel.attributedText = attrString

           

           

          the results should be transferrable to a UITextView()

           

          hope that helps,

          DMG

          • Re: NSAttributedString: left and right alignment
            Claude31 Level 8 Level 8 (7,275 points)
            Claude31 Aug 14, 2019 10:16 AM (in response to Albinus)

            For such precise presentation, I would use 2 textView and sync when scroll (if ever you scroll).

            It is not totally trivial to do, but result is clean.

             

            PS: it would be so much simpler to write numbers on the left (kidding ).