UITextView linkTextAttributes font attribute not applied to NSAttributedString

Question

I have an NSAttributedString generated from HTML which includes some links. The attributed string is shown in a UITextView. I wish to apply a different font style for the links and am setting linkTextAttributes for this. I've added NSForegroundColorAttributeName, NSFontAttributeName and NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName. For some reason the foreground color is applied but the remaining attributes are not.

myTextView.linkTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName : UIColor.redColor(), NSFontAttributeName : textLinkFont, NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName : NSUnderlineStyle.StyleNone.rawValue]

Has anyone else faced this and how do I change the font style for links without having to apply in-line CSS to the original HTML? Thanks.

Answer 1

Not sure why linkTextAttributes doesn't work for the font name. But we can achieve this by updating the link attributes of the NSAttributedString. Check the code below.

        do {
        let htmlStringCode = "For more info <a href=\"http://www.samplelink.com/subpage.php?id=8\">Click here</a>"

        let string = try NSAttributedString(data: htmlStringCode.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)!, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: NSUTF8StringEncoding], documentAttributes: nil)

        let newString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: string)
        string.enumerateAttributesInRange(NSRange.init(location: 0, length: string.length), options: .Reverse) { (attributes : [String : AnyObject], range:NSRange, _) -> Void in
            if let _ = attributes[NSLinkAttributeName] {
                newString.removeAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, range: range)
                newString.addAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, value: UIFont.systemFontOfSize(30), range: range)
            }
        }
        textField.attributedText = newString
        textField.linkTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName : UIColor.redColor(), NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName : NSUnderlineStyle.StyleNone.rawValue]

    }catch {
    }

This is the objective-C code for this:

NSDictionary *options = @{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute : NSHTMLTextDocumentType};
NSData *data = [html dataUsingEncoding:NSUnicodeStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:NO];

NSAttributedString *attributedString = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithData:data options:options documentAttributes:nil error:nil];
NSMutableAttributedString *attributedStringWithBoldLinks = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithAttributedString:attributedString];

[attributedString enumerateAttributesInRange:NSMakeRange(0, attributedString.string.length) options:NSAttributedStringEnumerationReverse usingBlock:^(NSDictionary<NSString *,id> * _Nonnull attrs, NSRange range, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {

    if ([attrs objectForKey:NSLinkAttributeName]) {
        [attributedStringWithBoldLinks removeAttribute:NSFontAttributeName range:range];
        [attributedStringWithBoldLinks addAttribute:NSFontAttributeName value:[UIFont fontWithName:@"YourFont-Bold" size:16.0] range:range];
    }
}];

self.linkTextAttributes = @{NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor redColor]};

self.attributedText = attributedStringWithBoldLinks;

Answer 2

This is a swift 3 update of answer above from @Arun Ammannaya

guard let font = UIFont.init(name: "Roboto-Regular", size: 15) else {
    return
}
let newString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: string)
let range = NSRange(location:0,length: string.length)
string.enumerateAttributes(in: range, options: .reverse, using: { (attributes : [String : Any], range : NSRange, _) -> Void in
    if let _ = attributes[NSLinkAttributeName] {
        newString.removeAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, range: range)
        newString.addAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, value: font, range: range)
    }
})
errorTextView.attributedText = newString
errorTextView.linkTextAttributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName : UIColor.green, NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName : NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle.rawValue]

This is a Swift 3 solution to @CTiPKA which I prefer since it avoids HTML

guard let attributedString = errorTextView.attributedText else {
    return
}
guard let font = UIFont.init(name: "Roboto-Regular", size: 15) else {
   return
}
let newString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: attributedString)

let types: NSTextCheckingResult.CheckingType = [.link, .phoneNumber]

guard let linkDetector = try? NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue) else { return  }
let range = NSRange(location:0,length: attributedString.length)

linkDetector.enumerateMatches(in: attributedString.string, options: [], range: range, using: { (match : NSTextCheckingResult?,
    flags : NSRegularExpression.MatchingFlags, stop) in

    if let matchRange = match?.range {
        newString.removeAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, range: matchRange)
        newString.addAttribute(NSFontAttributeName, value: font, range: matchRange)
    }
})
errorTextView.attributedText = newString

Answer 3

For some reason postprocessing attributed string with enumerateAttributesInRange: do not work for me.

So I used NSDataDetector to detect link and enumerateMatchesInString:options:range:usingBlock: to put my style for all links in string. Here is my processing function:

+ (void) postProcessTextViewLinksStyle:(UITextView *) textView {
   NSAttributedString *attributedString = textView.attributedText;
   NSMutableAttributedString *attributedStringWithItalicLinks = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithAttributedString:attributedString];

   NSError *error = nil;
   NSDataDetector *detector = [NSDataDetector dataDetectorWithTypes:NSTextCheckingTypeLink
                                                           error:&error];

   [detector enumerateMatchesInString:[attributedString string]
                           options:0
                             range:NSMakeRange(0, [attributedString length])
                        usingBlock:^(NSTextCheckingResult *match, NSMatchingFlags flags, BOOL *stop){
                            NSRange matchRange = [match range];
                            NSLog(@"Links style postprocessing. Range (from: %lu, length: %lu )", (unsigned long)matchRange.location, (unsigned long)matchRange.length);
                            if ([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypeLink) {                                    
                                [attributedStringWithItalicLinks removeAttribute:NSFontAttributeName range:matchRange];
                                [attributedStringWithItalicLinks addAttribute:NSFontAttributeName value:[UIFont fontWithName:@"YourFont-Italic" size:14.0f] range:matchRange];
                            }
                        }];

   textView.attributedText = attributedStringWithItalicLinks;
}

Answer 4

Updated for Swift 4:

let originalText = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: textView.attributedText)
var newString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: textView.attributedText)

originalText.enumerateAttributes(in: NSRange(0..<originalText.length), options: .reverse) { (attributes, range, pointer) in
    if let _ = attributes[NSAttributedString.Key.link] {
        newString.removeAttribute(NSAttributedString.Key.font, range: range)
        newString.addAttribute(NSAttributedString.Key.font, value: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 30), range: range)
    }
}

self.textView.attributedText = newString // updates the text view on the vc