Disabling user input for UITextfield in swift

Question

pretty trivial question, I know. But I can not find anything online.

I need to disable the user from being able to edit the text inside of a text field. So that when the click on the text, a keyboard doesn't show up.

Any ideas?

A programmatic solution or if it is possible through storyboards would be great.

score 142 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 10 '16 at 23:34

142

Try this:

Swift 2.0:

textField.userInteractionEnabled = false

Swift 3.0:

textField.isUserInteractionEnabled = false

Or in storyboard uncheck "User Interaction Enabled"

enter image description here

edited Dec 10 '16 at 23:34

John R Perry

3,916
2
38
62

answered Apr 22 '15 at 08:26

Vlad

7,199
2
25
32

Thanks. I had a look in the attributes inspector. Maybe I'm just not very observant -___- – Matt Spoon Apr 22 '15 at 08:37

score 61 · Answer 2 · edited May 01 '17 at 02:17

61

Another solution, declare your controller as UITextFieldDelegate, implement this call-back:

@IBOutlet weak var myTextField: UITextField!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    myTextField.delegate = self
}

func textFieldShouldBeginEditing(textField: UITextField) -> Bool {
    if textField == myTextField {
        return false; //do not show keyboard nor cursor
    }
    return true
}

edited May 01 '17 at 02:17

George Filippakos

16,359
15
81
92

answered Apr 22 '15 at 08:32

Duyen-Hoa

15,384
5
35
44

3

Swift 4: func textFieldShouldBeginEditing(_ textField: UITextField) – Maxim Firsoff Jan 23 '18 at 09:03
8

I like this solution the best, and here's why: I might want to disable text entry in my field, but still receive touch events for the `leftView` or `rightView` of the field. An example of this: let's say I want the text field to act as a drop down. I don't want the user to be able to enter anything he or she wants, but I want to know if they click the "drop down" arrow in my text field's `rightView`. Sure there are other solutions to drop downs, but this seems clean and allows you to use the same styling as your other text fields without needing to create a whole different class / object. – Brian Sachetta Nov 02 '18 at 19:28

score 33 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 15 '17 at 20:56

33

In storyboard you have two choise:

set the control's 'enable' to false.

enter image description here

set the view's 'user interaction enable' false

enter image description here

The diffierence between these choise is:

the appearance of UITextfild to display in the screen.

enter image description here

First is set the control's enable. You can see the backgroud color is changed.
Second is set the view's 'User interaction enable'. The backgroud color is NOT changed.

Within code:

textfield.enable = false
textfield.userInteractionEnabled = NO

Updated for Swift 3
1. textField.isEnabled = false
2. textfield.isUserInteractionEnabled = false

edited Oct 15 '17 at 20:56

fandro

4,833
7
41
62

answered Apr 22 '15 at 08:37

Hugo

1,122
11
12

3

I like how you provided the screenshot to show the difference between the two. – Mark Moeykens Apr 02 '18 at 22:08

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 10 '19 at 10:53

10

If you want to do it while keeping the user interaction on. In my case I am using (or rather misusing) isFocused

self.myField.inputView = UIView()

This way it will focus but keyboard won't show up.

answered Sep 10 '19 at 10:53

jeet.chanchawat

5,842
5
38
59

1

Exactly the behaviour I'm looking for! Thanks – adougies Sep 15 '19 at 00:57

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 22 '17 at 00:54

I like to do it like old times. You just use a custom UITextField Class like this one:

//
//  ReadOnlyTextField.swift
//  MediFormulas
//
//  Created by Oscar Rodriguez on 6/21/17.
//  Copyright © 2017 Nica Code. All rights reserved.
//

import UIKit

class ReadOnlyTextField: UITextField {

    /*
    // Only override draw() if you perform custom drawing.
    // An empty implementation adversely affects performance during animation.
    override func draw(_ rect: CGRect) {
        // Drawing code
    }
    */

    override init(frame: CGRect) {
        super.init(frame: frame)

        // Avoid keyboard to show up
        self.inputView = UIView()
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)

        // Avoid keyboard to show up
        self.inputView = UIView()
    }

    override func canPerformAction(_ action: Selector, withSender sender: Any?) -> Bool {
        // Avoid cut and paste option show up
        if (action == #selector(self.cut(_:))) {
            return false
        } else if (action == #selector(self.paste(_:))) {
            return false
        }

        return super.canPerformAction(action, withSender: sender)
    }

}

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 26 '20 at 07:35

2

In swift 5, I used following code to disable the textfield

override func viewDidLoad() {
   super.viewDidLoad()
   self.textfield.isEnabled = false
   //e.g
   self.design.isEnabled = false
}

edited Aug 26 '20 at 07:35

Vinoth Krishnan

2,925
6
29
34

answered Aug 26 '20 at 05:46

Mohammad Muddasir

947
10
21

FRIDDAY · Answer 7 · 2019-02-24T17:42:00.387

1

Swift 4.2 / Xcode 10.1:

Just uncheck behavior Enabled in your storyboard -> attributes inspector.

edited Feb 24 '19 at 17:42

answered Dec 29 '18 at 15:52

FRIDDAY

3,781
1
29
43

It appears to be Enabled rather than Editable. Was it changed? – Victor Engel Feb 24 '19 at 16:23
You are right, It is Enabled. Typing mistake. Thanks – FRIDDAY Feb 24 '19 at 17:41

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 22 '15 at 08:27

you can use UILabel instead if you don't want the user to be able to modify anything in your UITextField

A programmatic solution would be to use enabled property:

yourTextField.enabled = false

A way to do it in a storyboard:

Uncheck the Enabled checkbox in the properties of your UITextField

enter image description here

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited May 13 '22 at 06:02

0

textField.isUserInteractionEnabled = false

edited May 13 '22 at 06:02

Pankaj Kainthla

2,439
5
31
61

answered May 08 '22 at 15:57

Huy Quang

1
1

Disabling user input for UITextfield in swift

9 Answers9

Linked