ActiveLabel.swift

UILabel drop-in replacement supporting Hashtags (#), Mentions (@), URLs (http://), Emails and custom regex patterns, written in Swift

Features

Swift 5.0 (1.1.0+) and 4.2 (1.0.1)
Default support for Hashtags, Mentions, Links, Emails
Support for custom types via regex
Ability to enable highlighting only for the desired types
Ability to trim urls
Super easy to use and lightweight
Works as UILabel drop-in replacement
Well tested and documented

Install (iOS 10+)

Carthage

Add the following to your Cartfile and follow these instructions

github "optonaut/ActiveLabel.swift"

CocoaPods

CocoaPods 0.36 adds supports for Swift and embedded frameworks. To integrate ActiveLabel into your project add the following to your Podfile:

platform :ios, '10.0'
use_frameworks!

pod 'ActiveLabel'

Usage

import ActiveLabel

let label = ActiveLabel()
label.numberOfLines = 0
label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email]
label.text = "This is a post with #hashtags and a @userhandle."
label.textColor = .black
label.handleHashtagTap { hashtag in
    print("Success. You just tapped the \(hashtag) hashtag")
}

Custom types

let customType = ActiveType.custom(pattern: "\\swith\\b") //Regex that looks for "with"
label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email, customType]
label.text = "This is a post with #hashtags and a @userhandle."
label.customColor[customType] = UIColor.purple
label.customSelectedColor[customType] = UIColor.green
label.handleCustomTap(for: customType) { element in
    print("Custom type tapped: \(element)")
}

Enable/disable highlighting

By default, an ActiveLabel instance has the following configuration

label.enabledTypes = [.mention, .hashtag, .url, .email]

But feel free to enable/disable to fit your requirements

Batched customization

When using ActiveLabel, it is recommended to use the customize(block:) method to customize it. The reason is that ActiveLabel is reacting to each property that you set. So if you set 3 properties, the textContainer is refreshed 3 times.

When using customize(block:), you can group all the customizations on the label, that way ActiveLabel is only going to refresh the textContainer once.

Example:

label.customize { label in
    label.text = "This is a post with #multiple #hashtags and a @userhandle."
    label.textColor = UIColor(red: 102.0/255, green: 117.0/255, blue: 127.0/255, alpha: 1)
    label.hashtagColor = UIColor(red: 85.0/255, green: 172.0/255, blue: 238.0/255, alpha: 1)
    label.mentionColor = UIColor(red: 238.0/255, green: 85.0/255, blue: 96.0/255, alpha: 1)
    label.URLColor = UIColor(red: 85.0/255, green: 238.0/255, blue: 151.0/255, alpha: 1)
    label.handleMentionTap { self.alert("Mention", message: $0) }
    label.handleHashtagTap { self.alert("Hashtag", message: $0) }
    label.handleURLTap { self.alert("URL", message: $0.absoluteString) }
}

Trim long urls

You have the possiblity to set the maximum lenght a url can have;

label.urlMaximumLength = 30

From now on, a url that's bigger than that, will be trimmed.

https://afancyurl.com/whatever -> https://afancyurl.com/wh...

API

`mentionColor: UIColor = .blueColor()`

`mentionSelectedColor: UIColor?`

`hashtagColor: UIColor = .blueColor()`

`hashtagSelectedColor: UIColor?`

`URLColor: UIColor = .blueColor()`

`URLSelectedColor: UIColor?`

`customColor: [ActiveType : UIColor]`

`customSelectedColor: [ActiveType : UIColor]`

`lineSpacing: Float?`

`handleMentionTap: (String) -> ()`

label.handleMentionTap { userHandle in print("\(userHandle) tapped") }

`handleHashtagTap: (String) -> ()`

label.handleHashtagTap { hashtag in print("\(hashtag) tapped") }

`handleURLTap: (NSURL) -> ()`

label.handleURLTap { url in UIApplication.shared.openURL(url) }

`handleEmailTap: (String) -> ()`

label.handleEmailTap { email in print("\(email) tapped") }

`handleCustomTap(for type: ActiveType, handler: (String) -> ())`

label.handleCustomTap(for: customType) { element in print("\(element) tapped") }

`filterHashtag: (String) -> Bool`

label.filterHashtag { hashtag in validHashtags.contains(hashtag) }

`filterMention: (String) -> Bool`

label.filterMention { mention in validMentions.contains(mention) }

Alternatives

Before writing ActiveLabel we've tried a lot of the following alternatives but weren't quite satisfied with the quality level or ease of usage, so we decided to contribute our own solution.

TTTAttributedLabel (ObjC) - A drop-in replacement for UILabel that supports attributes, data detectors, links, and more
STTweetLabel (ObjC) - A UILabel with #hashtag @handle and links tappable
AMAttributedHighlightLabel (ObjC) - A UILabel subclass with mention/hashtag/link highlighting
KILabel (ObjC) - A simple to use drop in replacement for UILabel for iOS 7 and above that highlights links such as URLs, twitter style usernames and hashtags and makes them touchable

optonaut / ActiveLabel.swift

readme