Custom UITextField

Introduction#

Using custom UITextField, we can manipulate the behavior of text field!

Custom UITextField for Filtering Input Text

Here is an example of custom UITextField that takes only numerical text and discards all other.

NOTE: For iPhone it is easy to do this using Number type keyboard, but for iPad there is no keyboard with Numbers only

class NumberTextField: UITextField {
    
required init(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
    super.init(coder: aDecoder)
    registerForTextFieldNotifications()
}

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

override func awakeFromNib() {
    super.awakeFromNib()
    keyboardType = .numberPad//useful for iPhone only
}

private func registerForTextFieldNotifications() {
    NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(NumberTextField.textDidChange), name: NSNotification.Name(rawValue: "UITextFieldTextDidChangeNotification"), object: self)
}

deinit {
    NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self)
}

func textDidChange() {
    text = filteredText()
}
private func filteredText() -> String {
    let inverseSet = CharacterSet(charactersIn:"0123456789").inverted
    let components = text!.components(separatedBy: inverseSet)
    return components.joined(separator: "")
}
}

So, wherever we want text field which would take only numbers as input text, then we can use this custom UITextField

Custom UITextField to Disallow All Actions like Copy, Paste, etc

If we want to disable all the actions like Copy, Paste, Replace, Select, etc from UITextField then we can use following custom text field:

class CustomTextField: UITextField {

var enableLongPressActions = false

required init(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
    super.init(coder: aDecoder)!
}

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

override func canPerformAction(_ action: Selector, withSender sender: Any?) -> Bool {
    return enableLongPressActions
}
}

Using enableLongPressActions property, we can enable all actions any time later, if needed.