How to left align UISearchBar placeholder text

Question

I need to make a custom search bar like this. The problem I am having is left aligning the placeholder text, as well as placing the search icon in the right. I have a png of the search icon that I have tried to use in an UIImageView, and set that UIImageView as the rightView of the UISearchBar's UITextField. This solution has not worked, and I ran out of ideas. Does anyone have a solution?

Answer 1

Don't use a UISearchBar if you need to do these kinds of customizations. You'll have to make your own using a UITextField and a UIImageView, and responding to the delegate calls.

Answer 2

A working swift 3 solution for Drix answer:

import Foundation
    import UIKit

    class LeftAlignedSearchBar: UISearchBar, UISearchBarDelegate {
        override var placeholder:String? {
            didSet {
                if #available(iOS 9.0, *) {

                    if let text = placeholder {
                        if text.characters.last! != " " {
                            // get the font attribute
                            let attr = UITextField.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [LeftAlignedSearchBar.self]).defaultTextAttributes
                            // define a max size
                            let maxSize = CGSize(width: UIScreen.main.bounds.size.width - 87, height: 40)
                            // let maxSize = CGSize(width:self.bounds.size.width - 92,height: 40)
                            // get the size of the text
                            let widthText = text.boundingRect( with: maxSize, options: .usesLineFragmentOrigin, attributes:attr, context:nil).size.width
                            // get the size of one space
                            let widthSpace = " ".boundingRect( with: maxSize, options: .usesLineFragmentOrigin, attributes:attr, context:nil).size.width
                            let spaces = floor((maxSize.width - widthText) / widthSpace)
                            // add the spaces
                            let newText = text + ((Array(repeating: " ", count: Int(spaces)).joined(separator: "")))
                            // apply the new text if nescessary
                            if newText != text {
                                placeholder = newText
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        /*
        // Only override draw() if you perform custom drawing.
        // An empty implementation adversely affects performance during animation.
        override func draw(_ rect: CGRect) {
            // Drawing code
        }
        */

    }