Vertically aligning text in an NSTextField using Swift

Question

I have been reading through the various options on how to set the vertical alignment on an NSTextField. I want the text to be displayed in the center and to do it programatically in Swift. Here are the things I have looked so far:

• http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/cocoa/174994-repositioning-an-nstextfieldcell.html
• https://red-sweater.com/blog/148/what-a-difference-a-cell-makes
• Vertically Centre Text in NSSecureTextField with subclassing
• Get NSTextField contents to scale
• vertically align text in a CATextLayer?

One thing I have tried in Swift is to set the following property:

textField.usesSingleLineMode = true

Any tips on the best way to vertically center text would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

I have added the NSTextField inside a NSView and centered it.

Another solution was (in an iOS project) to create a UILabel and allow it adjust its size (sizeToFit()) and again embed it inside a UIView.

I personally don't like the calculations in previous answers and the second solution for iOS works for all texts size and row numbers.

Answer 2

Try this on a playground, it centers the text perfectly, use it on your projects! Hope it helps!

import Cocoa

let cell = NSTableCellView()
cell.frame = NSRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 100, height: 100)
let tf = NSTextField()
tf.frame = cell.frame
tf.stringValue = "MyTextfield"
tf.alignment = .Center

let stringHeight: CGFloat = tf.attributedStringValue.size().height
let frame = tf.frame
var titleRect:  NSRect = tf.cell!.titleRectForBounds(frame)

titleRect.size.height = stringHeight + ( stringHeight - (tf.font!.ascender + tf.font!.descender ) )
titleRect.origin.y = frame.size.height / 2  - tf.lastBaselineOffsetFromBottom - tf.font!.xHeight / 2
tf.frame = titleRect
cell.addSubview(tf)