How to clear UITextView upon editing?

Question

I currently have the following code:

class NewPostController: UIViewController {

@IBOutlet weak var MessageField: UITextView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    MessageField.text = "What's on your mind?"
    MessageField.textColor = UIColor.lightGrayColor()
}

func textViewDidBeginEditing(MessageField: UITextView) {
    if MessageField.textColor == UIColor.lightGrayColor() {
        MessageField.text = ""
        MessageField.textColor = UIColor.blackColor()
    }
}

However, whenever I edit MessageField, the code within textViewDidBeginEditing doesn't run. I suspect this is because of an invalid way of referencing MessageField within the function, but I don't know what to do.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27652227/text-view-placeholder-swift — Adrian, Jun 03 '15 at 01:37
I don't know swift, but I suppose you must delegate your text view to execute textViewDidVeginEditing. You must call [MessageField setDelegate:self] (equivalent in swift syntax) and you must add — Beto, Jun 03 '15 at 01:38
@AdrianB, the specifics of the code don't change the fact that I can write in `println("Hi")` within `textViewDidBeginEditing`, but it still doesn't run. — dbalagula23, Jun 03 '15 at 01:41

Daniel Storm · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-13T13:49:27.783

23

Looks like you're not setting your UITextView's delegate.

class ViewController: UIViewController, UITextViewDelegate {

@IBOutlet weak var myTextView: UITextView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    myTextView.delegate = self
}

func textViewDidBeginEditing(textView: UITextView) {
    myTextView.text = String()
}

UITextViewDelegate Protocol Reference

edited Dec 13 '18 at 13:49

answered Jun 03 '15 at 01:38

Daniel Storm

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func textViewDidBeginEditing(textView: UITextView) { textView.text = "" } **this also works.** – swiftBoy May 10 '16 at 13:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 04 '17 at 16:44

1

And to make @DanielStorm's answer work in Swift 3:

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    myTextView.text = ""
}

edited Jan 04 '17 at 16:44

clearlight

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answered Jan 04 '17 at 04:01

brunocortes06

51
9

Question isn't how to convert to Swift 3. And also, your instance variable is not defined, so is confusing. – clearlight Jan 04 '17 at 05:40
1

Well at least format it decently, I mean it's only 3 lines. – clearlight Jan 04 '17 at 16:43

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 30 '17 at 23:59

In addition to the answers already given, I'd probably take the approach of storing whether it's been cleared initially as an instance variable on your class. In most use cases, the user would expect it to be cleared only when they begin editing the first time (to get rid of any placeholder text):

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if !self.textViewClearedOnInitialEdit {
        self.textView.text = ""
        self.textViewClearedOnInitialEdit = true
    }
}

How to clear UITextView upon editing?

3 Answers3