TokenUI

TokenUI is a swift Framework for creating and managing a text input component that allows to add 'tokens' rendered as pills.

TokenUI has been developed for use in the Hootsuite iOS app.

Features

• TokenUI provides a layer on top of a UITextView that creates and responds to Tokens as the user types and taps.
• It keeps the same functionalities as a regular UITextView so the user can insert, delete and manipulate text even without any added tokens.

Requirements

• iOS 11.0+
• Xcode 10.0+

Demo Projects

See the demo project provided for example usage of the TokenUI framework.

Installation

TokenUI can be installed using either Carthage or CocoaPods.

Carthage

To integrate TokenUI into your Xcode project using Carthage, specify it in your Cartfile:

git "git@github.com:hootsuite/token-ui.git"

CocoaPods

First, add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'TokenUI'

Second, install TokenUI into your project:

pod install

Initialization

A TokenUI component is handled by its own controller called TokenTextViewController . In order to use it create an instance of TokenTextViewController

let tokenTextViewController = TokenTextViewController()

If needed set the initial properties such as font type, initial text, etc...

tokenTextViewController.scrollEnabled = true
tokenTextViewController.keyboardType = .default
tokenTextViewController.text = "initialText"

Next step is to add it as a child of your own viewController and add the TokenTextViewController view to the container view. That is the view that is going to display the TokenText UI component.

addChildViewController(tokenTextViewController)
view.addSubview(tokenTextViewController.view)
tokenTextViewController.didMove(toParentViewController: self)

Usage

A token information is represented using the TokenInformation struct.

public struct TokenInformation {

/// The `Token` identifier.
public var reference: TokenReference

/// The text that contains the `Token`.
public var text: String

/// The range of text that contains the `Token`.
public var range: NSRange

}

Add/Delete/Update tokens

You can easily add/update/delete tokens to your TokenUIViewController using the following API methods:

open func addToken(_ startIndex: Int, text: String) -> TokenInformation
open func updateTokenText(_ tokenRef: TokenReference, newText: String)
open func deleteToken(_ tokenRef: TokenReference)

Example of usage:

tokenTextViewController.addToken(6, text: "Team")

You can access a list of all the tokens in the view using the property:

var tokenList: [TokenInformation]

Delegate

As many other UI components, TokenUI uses the delegate pattern to notify changes to the view controller. Conform to TokenTextViewControllerDelegate to access these methods and set the delegate.

extension MessageEditorViewController: TokenTextViewControllerDelegate
...

tokenTextViewController.delegate = self

Interacting with text and tokens

TokenTextViewControllerDelegate provides a set of methods to detect changes on the text in a similar way as UITextViewDelegate. Also provides methods to detect user interaction with the tokens.

func tokenTextViewDidChange(_ sender: TokenTextViewController)
func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView)
func tokenTextViewDidSelectToken(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, tokenRef: TokenReference, fromRect rect: CGRect)
func tokenTextViewDidDeleteToken(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, tokenRef: TokenReference)

Customize tokens

Tokens can easily be customize using TokenTextViewControllerDelegate methods.

func tokenTextViewBackgroundColourForTokenRef(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, tokenRef: TokenReference) -> UIColor?
func tokenTextViewForegroundColourForTokenRef(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, tokenRef: TokenReference) -> UIColor?

For example, if we want to have blue color for the pill around the tokens:

func tokenTextViewBackgroundColourForTokenRef(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, tokenRef: TokenReference) -> UIColor? {
	return UIColor.blue
}

Text Manipulation

You can manipulate text in a TokenUI view the same way you may do it with a UITextView. The API provides several methods for adding text, replacing characters, etc.

func appendText(_ text: String)
func prependText(_ text: String)
func replaceFirstOccurrenceOfString(_ string: String, withString replacement: String)
func replaceCharactersInRange(_ range: NSRange, withString: String)

Detect changes on Tokens

To get notified for changes on the Token Text, we use TokenTextViewControllerInputDelegate

func tokenTextViewInputTextDidChange(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, inputText: String)
func tokenTextViewInputTextWasConfirmed(_ sender: TokenTextViewController)
func tokenTextViewInputTextWasCanceled(_ sender: TokenTextViewController, reason: TokenTextInputCancellationReason)

Objective-C

TokenUI makes use of Swift features such as Swift-style enums and enum protocols which are not supported by Objective-C. Due to this, the framework cannot be used in Objective-C only projects, but can be used in mixed Objective-C and Swift projects.

License

TokenUI is released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.md for details.