Most simple and reliable approach is to use UITexView as Kedar Paranjape recommended. Based on answer of Karl Nosworthy I finally came up with a simple UITextView subclass:
class LinkTextView: UITextView, UITextViewDelegate {
typealias Links = [String: String]
typealias OnLinkTap = (URL) -> Bool
var onLinkTap: OnLinkTap?
override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?) {
super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer)
isEditable = false
isSelectable = true
isScrollEnabled = false //to have own size and behave like a label
delegate = self
}
required init?(coder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: coder)
}
func addLinks(_ links: Links) {
guard attributedText.length > 0 else {
return
}
let mText = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: attributedText)
for (linkText, urlString) in links {
if linkText.count > 0 {
let linkRange = mText.mutableString.range(of: linkText)
mText.addAttribute(.link, value: urlString, range: linkRange)
}
}
attributedText = mText
}
func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldInteractWith URL: URL, in characterRange: NSRange) -> Bool {
return onLinkTap?(URL) ?? true
}
// to disable text selection
func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView) {
textView.selectedTextRange = nil
}
}
Usage is very simple:
let linkTextView = LinkTextView()
let tu = "Terms of Use"
let pp = "Privacy Policy"
linkTextView.text = "Please read the Some Company \(tu) and \(pp)"
linkTextView.addLinks([
tu: "https://some.com/tu",
pp: "https://some.com/pp"
])
linkTextView.onLinkTap = { url in
print("url: \(url)")
return true
}
Note that isScrollEnabled
is false by default, as in most cases we need small label-like view with own size and without scrolling. Just set it true if you want a scrollable text view.
Also note that UITextView unlike UILabel has default text padding. To remove it and make layout same as in UILabel just add: linkTextView.textContainerInset = .zero
Implementing onLinkTap
closure is not necessary, without it URLs is automatically open by UIApplication.
As Text selection is undesirable in most cases, but it can't be turned off it is dismissed in delegate method (Thanks to Carson Vo)