Multiple Colour Gradient with Label Mask in Swift (Xcode)

Question

I'm trying to use a 3 colour gradient to colour my text in Xcode and its seemingly impossible to get the results I'm looking for. I have had success with the following but this only gives me two colours through the gradient.

@IBOutlet weak var textSample: UILabel!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    textSample.textColor = UIColor(patternImage: gradientImage(size: textSample.frame.size, color1: CIColor(color: UIColor(red: 1.0, green: 1.0, blue: 1.0, alpha: 1.0)), color2: CIColor(color: UIColor(red: 1.0, green: 1.0, blue: 1.0, alpha: 0.2))))
}

func gradientImage(size: CGSize, color1: CIColor, color2: CIColor) -> UIImage {

    let context = CIContext(options: nil)
    let filter = CIFilter(name: "CILinearGradient")
    var startVector: CIVector
    var endVector: CIVector

    filter!.setDefaults()

    startVector = CIVector(x: size.width * 0.5, y: 0)
    endVector = CIVector(x: size.width * 0.5, y: size.height * 0.8)

    filter!.setValue(startVector, forKey: "inputPoint0")
    filter!.setValue(endVector, forKey: "inputPoint1")
    filter!.setValue(color1, forKey: "inputColor0")
    filter!.setValue(color2, forKey: "inputColor1")

    let image = UIImage(cgImage: context.createCGImage(filter!.outputImage!, from: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: size.width, height: size.height))!)
    return image
}

What I'd like to do is have 3 locations with three colours:

location1: y:0.0
location2: y:0.8
location3: y:1.0

color1: UIColour(red: 1, green: 1, blue: 1, alpha: 0.2)
color2: UIColour(red: 1, green: 1, blue: 1, alpha: 1.0)
color3: UIColour(red: 1, green: 1, blue: 1, alpha: 0.45)

I've been trying to simplify it by just adding that gradient with the 3 locations to a UIView, but it seems that no matter what I do for masking that UIView with the UILabel, nothing works. Any Suggestions would be extremely helpful. I've attached a picture with what I get with my above code, and an example of what I'd like to achieve if possible.

Answer 1

Maybe better choose will be CAGradientLayer (AppCoda), and then adding it to label as described here. Here is an example:

var labelBackground = UIView(frame: label.frame)
label.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
label.frame = label.bounds
var gradLayer = CAGradientLayer()
gradLayer.frame = labelBackground.layer.bounds
gradLayer.colors = [UIColor(red: 1.0, green: 1.0, blue: 1.0, alpha: 1.0).CGColor, UIColor(red: 1.0, green: 1.0, blue: 1.0, alpha: 0.2).CGColor, UIColor(red: 1, green: 1, blue: 1, alpha: 0.45).CGColor]
gradientLayer.locations = [0.0, 0.8, 1.0]    
labelBackground.layer.addSublayer(gradLayer)
labelBackground.addSubview(label)
view.addSubview(labelBackground)