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On my iPhone XS, I created a shortcut in the Control Center to quickly change the text size and test to make sure all the sizes work on my iPhone.
However, I'm often in the simulator trying to test, and it's tedious to need to switch to the Settings app and go through multiple menus to switch the text size.
Since the simulator has no Control Center, is there another way to more easily change the text size?
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In the simulator, go into settings (Choose "Home" on the hardware menu). Then General->Accessibility->Larger text. You also should slide the switch at the top to "Larger Accessibility Sizes". You'll then get a slider to adjust the text size.
The Dynamic Type feature allows users to choose the size of textual content displayed on the screen. It helps users who need larger text for better readability. It also accomodates those who can read smaller text, allowing more information to appear on the screen.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size. Adjust any of the following: Bold Text: Display the text in boldface characters. Larger Text: Turn on Larger Accessibility Sizes, then adjust the text size using the Font Size slider.
The simulator does a really lousy job of indicating app performance. In fact it doesn't try. For most things the simulator is much, much faster than an iOS device. It runs your code on an x86 processor, which is much faster than the ARM and has many times more memory.
To add support for Dynamic Type in your app, you use text styles. A text style describes the use of the text, such as headline or body or title1, and lets the system know how best to adjust its size. You can configure text styles in either Interface Builder or your source code.
Scale text in your interface automatically using Dynamic Type. The Dynamic Type feature allows users to choose the size of textual content displayed on the screen. It helps users who need larger text for better readability.
xSmall, Small, Medium, Large (Default), xLarge, xxLarge, xxxLarge, AX1, AX2, AX3, AX4, AX5. If you’re using the iOS built-in text styles, you get support for Dynamic Type out of the box. We’ll go into more detail about these built-in text styles later, as they will come into play a little more with supporting custom fonts.
This setting tells the text control to adjust the text size based on the Dynamic Type setting provided by the user. If the adjustsFontForContentSizeCategory property is set to false, the font will initially be the right size, but it won't respond to text-size changes the user makes in Settings or Control Center.
The best way to reach your goal depends on the Xcode version you're using.
In Xcode 10, go to the Xcode - Open Developer Tool menu and select the Accessibility Inspector element:
Settings button to display the different text sizes.If you need further explanation about this tool, I strongly recommend to take a look at these WWDC detailed summaries that contain very useful information: 2016 and 2019.
In Xcode 11, there's a new option directly accessible from the debug bar in the LOG window: if you haven't run your simulator, do it now and select the LOG window in Xcode:
Environment Overrides button to open the new pane.Using these tools is, in my view, the fastest way to test the Dynamic Type feature implementation.
⚠️ EDIT 2022/06/24 ⚠️
SwiftUI in Xcode 14 provides a new live previews that are interactive by default: your changes are immediately updated in the canvas and displayed in all sizes as you make them. 👍
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You can create a new dedicated simulator for that font size, which you can quickly choose from Xcode. For example:
Create a new simulator by tapping on “Window” » “Devices and Simulators” and tapping on the “+” button in the lower left corner:
Now, when you run the app from Xcode you can choose this new simulator where you “Choose scheme” in the Xcode toolbar:
For example:
Once you run the app on the simulator, jump to the “Settings” and change your font size there. You now have the two simulators that you can quickly choose from from the Xcode UI. You can even run the app simultaneously from both and watch how your app is rendered in both:
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