Change UITextField's placeholder text color programmatically

Question

I have a UITextField with a placeholder. When the user wants to submit the form and he/she hasn't typed anything in the textfield, I would like the placeholder's text color become red. Here are my questions:

Would that go against Apple's User interface guidelines? I don't want my app to be rejected because of such small detail.
How I would do it?

I know I can override the method drawPlaceholderInRect: in a subclass of UITextField. But if I did this, the text would be always red and as I wrote before, I would like it to become red depending on a user defined action.

The only solution I can think of is to use a "default" text for my UITextField (the placeholder's text), display it in light grey as long as the user hasn't typed anything and display it in red when I need it. In other words, I would just mock the placeholder's behavior. But of course, this is not very elegant.

Any ideas?

score 49 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 27 '12 at 08:53

49

Just look at this:

Digdog Dig - Change UITextField’s placeholder color without subclassing it

[self.MyTextField setValue:[UIColor darkGrayColor] forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

edited Jul 27 '12 at 08:53

answered Sep 13 '11 at 10:00

verklixt

693
5
13

Simple solution for an attribute that should be changeable in Xcode, thank you! – FreeAppl3 Jul 13 '12 at 08:45
Oddly enough it is important to note that this must be set *after* setting the placeholder text itself or the change doesn't take effect. – shawnwall Sep 26 '12 at 17:07
11

This might work for now, but keep in mind that _because_ this is not public API, it might change without notice. Apple could also reject this for using private API. – Bob Vork Dec 04 '12 at 13:05
2

This solution should absolutely not be marked as the answer because what Bob mentiod, it is part of the private functions/values and your app can be rejected for this. You should never use private api's unless you are not going to distribute via the app store. – Saren Inden Nov 28 '13 at 10:55

Atanu Mondal · Answer 2 · 2014-09-15T06:17:34.787

26

You can Change the Placeholder textcolor to any color by using the below code. Just try this.

UIColor *color = [UIColor lightTextColor];
YOURTEXTFIELD.attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"PlaceHolder Text" attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: color}];

edited Sep 15 '14 at 06:17

answered May 07 '14 at 13:24

Atanu Mondal

1,714
1
24
30

3

Seriously this should be the accepted answer for everything forever. Why EVER do anything else? – flagoworld Sep 12 '14 at 23:29

glasz · Answer 3 · 2014-04-03T23:56:59.987

12

like the answer from verklixt but without accessing private api and using UIAppearance:

[[UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UITextField class], nil] setTextColor:[UIColor darkGrayColor]];

(tested on 5.0 through 7.1)

edited Apr 03 '14 at 23:56

answered Mar 14 '13 at 02:21

glasz

2,526
25
24

Works perfectly. Also, Apple shouldn't reject it because it's not private is it? – Adam Carter Apr 04 '13 at 13:32
adam: yes, they should not reject this because non of this is undocumented. – glasz Apr 04 '13 at 22:30
6

Only works if you have one field in your view. When the textfield looses focus, the text will also be set to the placeholder color which may not be desirable. – Imran Apr 11 '13 at 13:51
Simple and perfect. Thank you! P.S. tested on 7.1 – Insider Mar 16 '14 at 09:49
Best Way!! Works perfect with me. – Eduardo Lagares Aug 18 '14 at 23:00
1

As Imran points out, the consequence of this technique is that the text uses the placeholder color when the text field loses focus. So using attributedPlaceholder works much better. – SarahR Sep 04 '14 at 03:17

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 25 '14 at 20:28

You can set the placeholder text as a NSAttributedString using this property

NSAttributedString *coloredPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"I     am a placeholder string" attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor redColor]}];
[self.textField setAttributedPlaceholder:coloredPlaceholder];

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 24 '12 at 05:58

5

We can gain access to place holder label using key path,so that we can change color i.e.:

[self.textField setValue:[UIColor **"your color"**] 
                                  forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

answered Feb 24 '12 at 05:58

Eshwar Chaitanya

697
10
21

1

This one is my favorite answer. – Morkrom Sep 04 '13 at 00:05

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 16 '12 at 07:58

4

override

-(void) drawPlaceholderInRect:(CGRect)rect {
    [[UIColor darkGrayColor] setFill];
    [[self placeholder] drawInRect:rect withFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica-Oblique" size:15.0]];
}

answered Jan 16 '12 at 07:58

harshalb

6,012
13
56
92

2

The OP explicitly says they don't want to override `drawPlaceholderInRect:`. – Jul 27 '12 at 08:40

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 07 '11 at 09:51

3

when user does not write any thing in textfield. then put this text as a textfield.text text and change font color.

answered Sep 07 '11 at 09:51

Rahul Juyal

2,124
1
16
33

Which text? The placeholder text? – strave Sep 07 '11 at 11:07
yes, just write the placeholder text as a normal text in textfield. – Rahul Juyal Sep 07 '11 at 11:35
1

Well, it's not what I expected but that will surely work. Thanks! – strave Sep 07 '11 at 12:00
4

I must say I don't like this kind of gotcha's, because You have to do more code by implementing the placeholder behavior and you always have to keep in mind the .text is not nil (and check if it's equal to default text, etc., etc.). What about subclassing as strave mentioned, but making the placeholder fill color depending on some variable, for example showRequired, and in setter setShowRequired: call [self setNeedsDisplay];, which would automaticaly do the redrawing of placeholder (self.showRequired?[[UIColor redColor] setFill]:[[UIColor grayColor] setFill])? – JakubKnejzlik May 24 '13 at 00:49

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Jul 26 '12 at 16:15

I had some difficulty implementing color change of placeholder, instead I've found another solution which works perfectly for me.

//On button action change color to red
-(void)btnAction
{
    // authentication for missing textfields
    if ([textField_firstName.text isEqualToString:@""])
    {
        textField_firstName.textColor=[UIColor redColor];
        textField_firstName.text=@"Enter First Name";
    }
}

// in the delegate method of UITextField change the following 
- (void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField
{
    //match the following string with above string and change the string to empty string on textfield click
    if ([textField_firstName.text isEqualToString:@"Enter First Name" ]) 
    {
        textField_firstName.text=@"";
    }

    //change back to the text color you use
    textField_firstName.textColor=[UIColor blackColor];
}

Change UITextField's placeholder text color programmatically

8 Answers8

Linked