UITextView limit characters and display count left

Question

I'm trying limit the characters for a UITextView to 200. It gets the data from Firebase Database (if it's available), if not - the UILabel that represents the characters left should be hidden - hence, if there's data (text in the text field it should present the UILabel with left characters.

I've made sure to conform my UIViewController as a delegate of UITextViewDelegate and I've also set up IBOutlet weak var descriptionTextView: TextViewX! (TextViewX is a subclass of UITextView) and set the descriptionTextView.delegate = self in the viewDidLoad() method. Once you start typing in the text view, the label count is simply not updated or shown at all.

Also, I'd also would like to change the color of the UILabel from green to red when it detects that there are less than 30 characters left.

Here's the code that I have, but it's not working. The characters left is not shown at at all:

func textView(_ textView: TextViewX, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool { let newText = (textView.text as NSString).replacingCharacters(in: range, with: text) let numberOfChars = newText.characters.count return numberOfChars < 200 } func textViewDidChange(textView: TextViewX) { let currentCharacterCount = 200 - textView.text.characters.count if currentCharacterCount >= 30 { descriptionCharacterCountLabel.text = "\(200 - textView.text.characters.count)" } else { descriptionCharacterCountLabel.textColor = UIColor.red descriptionCharacterCountLabel.text = "\(200 - textView.text.characters.count)" } }

Did it successfully stop you from entering any more text when it reaches 200 chars? — Sweeper
– Sweeper, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 16:27
Are yo sure that your delegate methods are called by putting a break point? — Fangming
– Fangming, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 16:27
@Sweeper - it reaches the limit and it stops. @Fangming Ning - Yes, the delegate works. @rmaddy - It's not hidden, it's visible. I see the UILabel — Dani
– Dani, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 17:05

Sweeper · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-06 17:16:01Z

2

If you look closely at the docs for UITextViewDelegate, you will see that textViewDidChange is defined like this:

optional func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView)

Look at the parameter! It requires a parameter with an external parameter name of _!

Look what you've written:

func textViewDidChange(textView: TextViewX)

Your parameter's external name is textView!

This is why it does not work.

So, just add _ and a space before textView and change the type of the parameter to UITextView.

edited Jul 6, 2017 at 17:16

answered Jul 6, 2017 at 16:29

Sweeper

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5 Comments

Dani Over a year ago

I've added descriptionTextView.addTarget(self, action: #selector(textChanged), for .editingChanged) but it shows an error related to the 'for' saying "Expected expression in list of expressions"

Sweeper Over a year ago

@Dani You need an : after for. My bad!

Dani Over a year ago

I figured that was the case and I tried with : but it shows another error that states "Value of type TextViewX has no member add target"

Sweeper Over a year ago

@Dani I've found what's wrong with your code now. See the edited answer.

Dani Over a year ago

OMG! YES! hahaha one tiny _ and the entire code is invalid! Thank you so much!

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