How do I create a multiline TextField in SwiftUI?

Question

I've been trying to create a multiline TextField in SwiftUI, but I can't figure out how.

This is the code I currently have:

struct EditorTextView : View {
    @Binding var text: String
    
    var body: some View {
        TextField($text)
            .lineLimit(4)
            .multilineTextAlignment(.leading)
            .frame(minWidth: 100, maxWidth: 200, minHeight: 100, maxHeight: .infinity, alignment: .topLeading)
    }
}

#if DEBUG
let sampleText = """
Very long line 1
Very long line 2
Very long line 3
Very long line 4
"""

struct EditorTextView_Previews : PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        EditorTextView(text: .constant(sampleText))
            .previewLayout(.fixed(width: 200, height: 200))
    }
}
#endif

But this is the output:

Answer 1

iOS 16+

TextField can be configured to expand vertically using the new axis parameter. Also, it takes the lineLimit modifier to limit the lines in the given range:

TextField("Title", text: $text,  axis: .vertical)
    .lineLimit(5...10)

_{The .lineLimit modifier now also supports more advanced behaviors, like reserving a minimum amount of space and expanding as more content is added, and then scrolling once the content exceeds the upper limit}

---

iOS 14+

It is called TextEditor

struct ContentView: View {
    @State var text: String = "Multiline \ntext \nis called \nTextEditor"

    var body: some View {
        TextEditor(text: $text)
    }
}

Dynamic growing height:

If you want it to grow as you type, embed it in a ZStack with a Text like this:

---

iOS 13+

you can use the native UITextView right in the SwiftUI code with this struct:

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    
    typealias UIViewType = UITextView
    var configuration = { (view: UIViewType) in }
    
    func makeUIView(context: UIViewRepresentableContext<Self>) -> UIViewType {
        UIViewType()
    }
    
    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UIViewType, context: UIViewRepresentableContext<Self>) {
        configuration(uiView)
    }
}

Usage

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        TextView() {
            $0.textColor = .red
            // Any other setup you like
        }
    }
}

Advantages:

• Support for iOS 13
• Shared with the legacy code
• Tested for years in UIKit
• Fully customizable
• All other benefits of the original UITextView

Answer 2

Ok, I started with @sas approach, but needed it really look&feel as multi-line text field with content fit, etc. Here is what I've got. Hope it will be helpful for somebody else... Used Xcode 11.1.

Provided custom MultilineTextField has:
1. content fit
2. autofocus
3. placeholder
4. on commit

import SwiftUI
import UIKit

fileprivate struct UITextViewWrapper: UIViewRepresentable {
    typealias UIViewType = UITextView

    @Binding var text: String
    @Binding var calculatedHeight: CGFloat
    var onDone: (() -> Void)?

    func makeUIView(context: UIViewRepresentableContext<UITextViewWrapper>) -> UITextView {
        let textField = UITextView()
        textField.delegate = context.coordinator

        textField.isEditable = true
        textField.font = UIFont.preferredFont(forTextStyle: .body)
        textField.isSelectable = true
        textField.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
        textField.isScrollEnabled = false
        textField.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        if nil != onDone {
            textField.returnKeyType = .done
        }

        textField.setContentCompressionResistancePriority(.defaultLow, for: .horizontal)
        return textField
    }

    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: UIViewRepresentableContext<UITextViewWrapper>) {
        if uiView.text != self.text {
            uiView.text = self.text
        }
        if uiView.window != nil, !uiView.isFirstResponder {
            uiView.becomeFirstResponder()
        }
        UITextViewWrapper.recalculateHeight(view: uiView, result: $calculatedHeight)
    }

    fileprivate static func recalculateHeight(view: UIView, result: Binding<CGFloat>) {
        let newSize = view.sizeThatFits(CGSize(width: view.frame.size.width, height: CGFloat.greatestFiniteMagnitude))
        if result.wrappedValue != newSize.height {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                result.wrappedValue = newSize.height // !! must be called asynchronously
            }
        }
    }

    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        return Coordinator(text: $text, height: $calculatedHeight, onDone: onDone)
    }

    final class Coordinator: NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {
        var text: Binding<String>
        var calculatedHeight: Binding<CGFloat>
        var onDone: (() -> Void)?

        init(text: Binding<String>, height: Binding<CGFloat>, onDone: (() -> Void)? = nil) {
            self.text = text
            self.calculatedHeight = height
            self.onDone = onDone
        }

        func textViewDidChange(_ uiView: UITextView) {
            text.wrappedValue = uiView.text
            UITextViewWrapper.recalculateHeight(view: uiView, result: calculatedHeight)
        }

        func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {
            if let onDone = self.onDone, text == "\n" {
                textView.resignFirstResponder()
                onDone()
                return false
            }
            return true
        }
    }

}

struct MultilineTextField: View {

    private var placeholder: String
    private var onCommit: (() -> Void)?

    @Binding private var text: String
    private var internalText: Binding<String> {
        Binding<String>(get: { self.text } ) {
            self.text = $0
            self.showingPlaceholder = $0.isEmpty
        }
    }

    @State private var dynamicHeight: CGFloat = 100
    @State private var showingPlaceholder = false

    init (_ placeholder: String = "", text: Binding<String>, onCommit: (() -> Void)? = nil) {
        self.placeholder = placeholder
        self.onCommit = onCommit
        self._text = text
        self._showingPlaceholder = State<Bool>(initialValue: self.text.isEmpty)
    }

    var body: some View {
        UITextViewWrapper(text: self.internalText, calculatedHeight: $dynamicHeight, onDone: onCommit)
            .frame(minHeight: dynamicHeight, maxHeight: dynamicHeight)
            .background(placeholderView, alignment: .topLeading)
    }

    var placeholderView: some View {
        Group {
            if showingPlaceholder {
                Text(placeholder).foregroundColor(.gray)
                    .padding(.leading, 4)
                    .padding(.top, 8)
            }
        }
    }
}

#if DEBUG
struct MultilineTextField_Previews: PreviewProvider {
    static var test:String = ""//some very very very long description string to be initially wider than screen"
    static var testBinding = Binding<String>(get: { test }, set: {
//        print("New value: \($0)")
        test = $0 } )

    static var previews: some View {
        VStack(alignment: .leading) {
            Text("Description:")
            MultilineTextField("Enter some text here", text: testBinding, onCommit: {
                print("Final text: \(test)")
            })
                .overlay(RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 4).stroke(Color.black))
            Text("Something static here...")
            Spacer()
        }
        .padding()
    }
}
#endif

Answer 3

Update: While Xcode11 beta 4 now does support TextView, I've found that wrapping a UITextView is still be best way to get editable multiline text to work. For instance, TextView has display glitches where text does not appear properly inside the view.

Original (beta 1) answer:

For now, you could wrap a UITextView to create a composable View:

import SwiftUI
import Combine

final class UserData: BindableObject  {
    let didChange = PassthroughSubject<UserData, Never>()

    var text = "" {
        didSet {
            didChange.send(self)
        }
    }

    init(text: String) {
        self.text = text
    }
}

struct MultilineTextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    @Binding var text: String

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {
        let view = UITextView()
        view.isScrollEnabled = true
        view.isEditable = true
        view.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
        return view
    }

    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
        uiView.text = text
    }
}

struct ContentView : View {
    @State private var selection = 0
    @EnvironmentObject var userData: UserData

    var body: some View {
        TabbedView(selection: $selection){
            MultilineTextView(text: $userData.text)
                .tabItemLabel(Image("first"))
                .tag(0)
            Text("Second View")
                .font(.title)
                .tabItemLabel(Image("second"))
                .tag(1)
        }
    }
}

#if DEBUG
struct ContentView_Previews : PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        ContentView()
            .environmentObject(UserData(
                text: """
                        Some longer text here
                        that spans a few lines
                        and runs on.
                        """
            ))

    }
}
#endif

Answer 4

With a Text() you can achieve this using .lineLimit(nil), and the documentation suggests this should work for TextField() too. However, I can confirm this does not currently work as expected.

I suspect a bug - would recommend filing a report with Feedback Assistant. I have done this and the ID is FB6124711.

EDIT: Update for iOS 14: use the new TextEditor instead.

Answer 5

This wraps UITextView in Xcode Version 11.0 beta 6 (still working at Xcode 11 GM seed 2):

import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
     @State var text = ""

       var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("text is: \(text)")
            TextView(
                text: $text
            )
                .frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 0, maxHeight: .infinity)
        }

       }
}

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    @Binding var text: String

    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        Coordinator(self)
    }

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {

        let myTextView = UITextView()
        myTextView.delegate = context.coordinator

        myTextView.font = UIFont(name: "HelveticaNeue", size: 15)
        myTextView.isScrollEnabled = true
        myTextView.isEditable = true
        myTextView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
        myTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor(white: 0.0, alpha: 0.05)

        return myTextView
    }

    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
        uiView.text = text
    }

    class Coordinator : NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {

        var parent: TextView

        init(_ uiTextView: TextView) {
            self.parent = uiTextView
        }

        func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {
            return true
        }

        func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
            print("text now: \(String(describing: textView.text!))")
            self.parent.text = textView.text
        }
    }
}

struct ContentView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
    static var previews: some View {
        ContentView()
    }
}

Answer 6

@Meo Flute's answer is great! But it doesn't work for multistage text input. And combined with @Asperi's answer, here is the fixed for that and I also added the support for placeholder just for fun!

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    var placeholder: String
    @Binding var text: String

    var minHeight: CGFloat
    @Binding var calculatedHeight: CGFloat

    init(placeholder: String, text: Binding<String>, minHeight: CGFloat, calculatedHeight: Binding<CGFloat>) {
        self.placeholder = placeholder
        self._text = text
        self.minHeight = minHeight
        self._calculatedHeight = calculatedHeight
    }

    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        Coordinator(self)
    }

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {
        let textView = UITextView()
        textView.delegate = context.coordinator

        // Decrease priority of content resistance, so content would not push external layout set in SwiftUI
        textView.setContentCompressionResistancePriority(.defaultLow, for: .horizontal)

        textView.isScrollEnabled = false
        textView.isEditable = true
        textView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
        textView.backgroundColor = UIColor(white: 0.0, alpha: 0.05)

        // Set the placeholder
        textView.text = placeholder
        textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

        return textView
    }

    func updateUIView(_ textView: UITextView, context: Context) {
        textView.text = self.text

        recalculateHeight(view: textView)
    }

    func recalculateHeight(view: UIView) {
        let newSize = view.sizeThatFits(CGSize(width: view.frame.size.width, height: CGFloat.greatestFiniteMagnitude))
        if minHeight < newSize.height && $calculatedHeight.wrappedValue != newSize.height {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                self.$calculatedHeight.wrappedValue = newSize.height // !! must be called asynchronously
            }
        } else if minHeight >= newSize.height && $calculatedHeight.wrappedValue != minHeight {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                self.$calculatedHeight.wrappedValue = self.minHeight // !! must be called asynchronously
            }
        }
    }

    class Coordinator : NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {

        var parent: TextView

        init(_ uiTextView: TextView) {
            self.parent = uiTextView
        }

        func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
            // This is needed for multistage text input (eg. Chinese, Japanese)
            if textView.markedTextRange == nil {
                parent.text = textView.text ?? String()
                parent.recalculateHeight(view: textView)
            }
        }

        func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
            if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
                textView.text = nil
                textView.textColor = UIColor.black
            }
        }

        func textViewDidEndEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
            if textView.text.isEmpty {
                textView.text = parent.placeholder
                textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
            }
        }
    }
}

Use it like this:

struct ContentView: View {
    @State var text: String = ""
    @State var textHeight: CGFloat = 150

    var body: some View {
        ScrollView {
            TextView(placeholder: "", text: self.$text, minHeight: self.textHeight, calculatedHeight: self.$textHeight)
            .frame(minHeight: self.textHeight, maxHeight: self.textHeight)
        }
    }
}

Answer 7

Currently, the best solution is to use this package I created called TextView.

You can install it using Swift Package Manager (explained in the README). It allows for toggle-able editing state, and numerous customizations (also detailed in the README).

Here's an example:

import SwiftUI
import TextView

struct ContentView: View {
    @State var input = ""
    @State var isEditing = false

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Button(action: {
                self.isEditing.toggle()
            }) {
                Text("\(isEditing ? "Stop" : "Start") editing")
            }
            TextView(text: $input, isEditing: $isEditing)
        }
    }
}

In that example, you first define two @State variables. One is for the text, which the TextView writes to whenever it is typed in, and another is for the isEditing state of the TextView.

The TextView, when selected, toggles the isEditing state. When you click the button, that also toggles the isEditing state which will show the keyboard and select the TextView when true, and deselect the TextView when false.

Answer 8

SwiftUI has TextEditor, which is akin to TextField but offers long-form text entry which wraps into multiple lines:

var body: some View {
    NavigationView{
        Form{
            Section{
                List{
                    Text(question6)
                    TextEditor(text: $responseQuestion6).lineLimit(4)
                    Text(question7)
                    TextEditor(text:  $responseQuestion7).lineLimit(4)
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 9

SwiftUI TextView(UIViewRepresentable) with following parameters available: fontStyle, isEditable, backgroundColor, borderColor & border Width

TextView(text: self.$viewModel.text, fontStyle: .body, isEditable: true, backgroundColor: UIColor.white, borderColor: UIColor.lightGray, borderWidth: 1.0) .padding()

TextView (UIViewRepresentable)

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {

@Binding var text: String
var fontStyle: UIFont.TextStyle
var isEditable: Bool
var backgroundColor: UIColor
var borderColor: UIColor
var borderWidth: CGFloat

func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
    Coordinator(self)
}

func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {

    let myTextView = UITextView()
    myTextView.delegate = context.coordinator

    myTextView.font = UIFont.preferredFont(forTextStyle: fontStyle)
    myTextView.isScrollEnabled = true
    myTextView.isEditable = isEditable
    myTextView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
    myTextView.backgroundColor = backgroundColor
    myTextView.layer.borderColor = borderColor.cgColor
    myTextView.layer.borderWidth = borderWidth
    myTextView.layer.cornerRadius = 8
    return myTextView
}

func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
    uiView.text = text
}

class Coordinator : NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {

    var parent: TextView

    init(_ uiTextView: TextView) {
        self.parent = uiTextView
    }

    func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {
        return true
    }

    func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
        self.parent.text = textView.text
    }
  }
}

Answer 10

Available for Xcode 12 and iOS14, it's really easy.

import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
    
    @State private var text = "Hello world"
    
    var body: some View {
        TextEditor(text: $text)
    }
}

Answer 11

MacOS implementation

struct MultilineTextField: NSViewRepresentable {
    
    typealias NSViewType = NSTextView
    private let textView = NSTextView()
    @Binding var text: String
    
    func makeNSView(context: Context) -> NSTextView {
        textView.delegate = context.coordinator
        return textView
    }
    func updateNSView(_ nsView: NSTextView, context: Context) {
        nsView.string = text
    }
    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        return Coordinator(self)
    }
    class Coordinator: NSObject, NSTextViewDelegate {
        let parent: MultilineTextField
        init(_ textView: MultilineTextField) {
            parent = textView
        }
        func textDidChange(_ notification: Notification) {
            guard let textView = notification.object as? NSTextView else { return }
            self.parent.text = textView.string
        }
    }
}

and how to use

struct ContentView: View {

    @State var someString = ""

    var body: some View {
         MultilineTextField(text: $someString)
    }
}

Answer 12

Just want to share my UITextView solution minus the coordinator. I noticed that SwiftUI calls UITextView.intrinsicContentSize without telling it what width it should fit in. By default UITextView assumes that it has unlimited width to lay out the content so if it has only one line of text it will return the size required to fit that one line.

To fix this, we can subclass UITextView and invalidate the intrinsic size whenever the view's width changes and take the width into account when calculating the intrinsic size.

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {

  var text: String

  public init(_ text: String) {
    self.text = text
  }

  public func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {
    let textView = WrappedTextView()
    textView.backgroundColor = .clear
    textView.isScrollEnabled = false
    textView.textContainerInset = .zero
    textView.textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0
    textView.setContentCompressionResistancePriority(.defaultLow, for: .horizontal)
    textView.setContentHuggingPriority(.defaultHigh, for: .vertical)
    return textView
  }

  public func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
    uiView.text = text
  }
}

class WrappedTextView: UITextView {

  private var lastWidth: CGFloat = 0

  override func layoutSubviews() {
    super.layoutSubviews()
    if bounds.width != lastWidth {
      lastWidth = bounds.width
      invalidateIntrinsicContentSize()
    }
  }

  override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
    let size = sizeThatFits(
      CGSize(width: lastWidth, height: UIView.layoutFittingExpandedSize.height))
    return CGSize(width: size.width.rounded(.up), height: size.height.rounded(.up))
  }
}

Answer 13

Here's what I came up with based on Asperi's answer. This solution doesn't require to calculate and propagate size. It uses the contentSize and intrinsicContentSize inside the TextView itself:

struct TextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    @Binding var text: String
    
    func makeUIView(context: UIViewRepresentableContext<TextView>) -> UITextView {
        let textView = UIKitTextView()
        
        textView.delegate = context.coordinator
        
        return textView
    }
    
    func updateUIView(_ textView: UITextView, context: UIViewRepresentableContext<TextView>) {
        if textView.text != self.text {
            textView.text = self.text
        }
    }
    
    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        return Coordinator(text: $text)
    }
    
    final private class UIKitTextView: UITextView {
        override var contentSize: CGSize {
            didSet {
                invalidateIntrinsicContentSize()
            }
        }
        
        override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
            // Or use e.g. `min(contentSize.height, 150)` if you want to restrict max height
            CGSize(width: UIView.noIntrinsicMetric, height: contentSize.height)
        }
    }
    
    final class Coordinator: NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {
        var text: Binding<String>
        
        init(text: Binding<String>) {
            self.text = text
        }
        
        func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
            text.wrappedValue = textView.text
        }
    }
}

Answer 14

You can just use TextEditor(text: $text) and then add any modifiers for things such as height.

Answer 15

I use textEditor

TextEditor(text: $text)
    .multilineTextAlignment(.leading)
    .cornerRadius(25)
    .font(Font.custom("AvenirNext-Regular", size: 20, relativeTo: .body))
    //.autocapitalization(.words)
    .disableAutocorrection(true)
    .border(Color.gray, width: 3)
    .padding([.leading, .bottom, .trailing])

Answer 16

I thought I'd share my code since the other answers aren't using the Coordinator correctly:

struct UITextViewTest: View {
    @State var text = "Hello, World!"
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            TextField("", text: $text)
            MultilineTextField(text: $text)
        }
    }
}


struct MultilineTextField: UIViewRepresentable {
    @Binding var text: String
    
    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        Coordinator()
    }

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {
        context.coordinator.textView
    }
    
    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
        // update in case the text value has changed, we assume the UIView checks if the value is different before doing any actual work.
        // fortunately UITextView doesn't call its delegate when setting this property (in case of MKMapView, we would need to set our did change closures to nil to prevent infinite loop).
        uiView.text = text

        // since the binding passed in may have changed we need to give a new closure to the coordinator.
        context.coordinator.textDidChange = { newText in
            text = newText
        }
    }
    
    class Coordinator: NSObject, UITextViewDelegate {
        lazy var textView: UITextView = {
            let textView = UITextView()
            textView.font = .preferredFont(forTextStyle: .body)
            textView.delegate = self
            return textView
        }()
        
        var textDidChange: ((String) -> Void)?
        
        func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {
            return true
        }
        
        func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
            textDidChange?(textView.text)
        }
    }
}