Remove padding around UISearchBar textfield

Question

I am trying to left align the text field within a UISearchBar.

I am talking about the area in purple below.

I have been able to hide this by setting the background as .clear however I would now like the text field to align with the leading edge of the text above. I am unsure what property I should adjust to properly left align the entire search field.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no way to reliably remove this padding. Currently (as of iOS 13) the horizontal padding is 8 pts, and the vertical is 10 pts.

You can simply set the leading/trailing constraints to the "Discogs|Search" view + 8 pts to make it appear the same size.

I needed to do something similar to wrap UISearchBar in SwiftUI, but instead used the padding modifier on the UISearchBar UIViewRepresentable like so:

struct SearchBar: View {
    private var title: String = "Search"
    @Binding private var text: String
    private var onEditingChanged: (Bool) -> Void

    init(
        _ title: String,
        text: Binding<String>,
        onEditingChanged: @escaping (Bool) -> Void = { _ in }
    ) {
        self.title = title
        self._text = text
        self.onEditingChanged = onEditingChanged
    }

    var body: some View {
        __SearchBar(title, text: $text, onEditingChanged: onEditingChanged)
            .padding(.horizontal, -8)
            .padding(.vertical, -10)
    }
}

private struct __SearchBar: UIViewRepresentable {
    private var placeHolder: String = "Search"
    @Binding private var text: String
    private var onEditingChanged: (Bool) -> Void

    init(
        _ title: String,
        text: Binding<String>,
        onEditingChanged: @escaping (Bool) -> Void
    ) {
        self.placeHolder = title
        self._text = text
        self.onEditingChanged = onEditingChanged
    }

    final class Coordinator: NSObject, UISearchBarDelegate {
        private let parent: __SearchBar
        @Binding var text: String

        init(parent: __SearchBar, text: Binding<String>) {
            self.parent = parent
            _text = text
        }

        func searchBar(
            _ searchBar: UISearchBar,
            textDidChange searchText: String
        ) {
            text = searchText
        }

        func searchBarTextDidBeginEditing(_ searchBar: UISearchBar) {
            parent.onEditingChanged(true)
        }

        func searchBarTextDidEndEditing(_ searchBar: UISearchBar) {
            parent.onEditingChanged(false)
        }
    }

    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        Coordinator(parent: self, text: $text)
    }

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UISearchBar {
        let searchBar = UISearchBar(frame: .zero)
        searchBar.placeholder = placeHolder
        searchBar.searchBarStyle = .minimal
        searchBar.delegate = context.coordinator
        return searchBar
    }

    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UISearchBar, context: Context) {
        uiView.text = text
    }
}