TextViewPlus

TextViewPlus is a collection of utilities for making it easier to work with NSTextView and the text system.

Integration

Swift Package Manager:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/ChimeHQ/TextViewPlus")
]

Extensions

Geometry

Wrappers around the underlying NSLayoutManager, but with a much more convenient API.

func enumerateLineFragments(for range: NSRange, block: (NSRect, NSRange) -> Void)
func enumerateLineFragments(for rect: NSRect, block: (NSRect, NSRange) -> Void)

Ranges

Handy methods for computing ranges of text within the view.

func textRange(for rect: NSRect) -> NSRange
var visibleTextRange: NSRange

Selection

Convenience methods for computing selection ranges/locations.

var selectedTextRanges: [NSRange]
var selectedContinuousRange: NSRange?
var insertionLocation: Int?

Style

Styling changes can be very expensive, this method is much faster in certain common cases.

func updateFont(_ newFont: NSFont, color newColor: NSColor)

Bounding

Computing bounding rectangles of displayed text.

func boundingRect(for range: NSRange) -> NSRect?
func boundingRect(forGlyphRange range: NSRange) -> NSRect?
func boundingSelectionRects(forRange range: NSRange) -> [NSRect]

Attributed Strings

Programmtic modification of the underlying attributed string in the NSTextStorage, with support for delegate callbacks and undo.

func replaceCharacters(in range: NSRange, with attributedString: NSAttributedString)

// with undo supported
func replaceString(in range: NSRange, with attributedString: NSAttributedString)

Behavior

Changing NSTextView behaviors can be tricky, and often involve complex interactions with the whole system (NSLayoutManager, NSTextContainer, NSScrollView, etc).

public var wrapsTextToHorizontalBounds: Bool

Workarounds

// Fixes a widely-seen selection drawing artifact
func applySelectionDrawingWorkaround()

In versions of macOS before 13, TextKit 2 doesn’t correctly apply rendering attributes. You can sub in this NSTextLayoutFragment to workaround the issue.

extension YourClass: NSTextLayoutManagerDelegate {
    func textLayoutManager(_ textLayoutManager: NSTextLayoutManager, textLayoutFragmentFor location: NSTextLocation, in textElement: NSTextElement) -> NSTextLayoutFragment {
        let range = textElement.elementRange

        switch textElement {
        case let paragraph as NSTextParagraph:
            return ParagraphRenderingAttributeTextLayoutFragment(textParagraph: paragraph, range: range)
        default:
            return NSTextLayoutFragment(textElement: textElement, range: range)
        }
    }
}

Suggestions or Feedback

We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch via twitter, an issue, or a pull request.

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.