Generate styled SwiftUI Text from strings with XML tags
XMLText
XMLText is a mini library that can generate SwiftUI Text from a given XML string with tags. It uses + operator of Text to compose the final output.
Text(
xmlString: "my <bold>localized</bold> and <italic>styled</italic> string",
styleGroup: myStyleDefinitions
)
The original idea comes directly from SwiftRichString library by Daniele Margutti on GitHub. Code for XML parsing, StyleProtocol, and StyleGroup are taken from this library, slight modifications are made to them in order to generate SwiftUI Text instead of NSAttributedString.
This is really useful for localising your apps for styled strings without having to know the location of the strings in the code that needs to be styled. This is a pretty fine alternative to having to use NSAttributedString with UIViewRepresentable of a UILabel in a SwiftUI app, as the layout of UIViewRepresentable for such dynamic views as UILabel doesn't always work and is prone to glitches when combined with other SwiftUI views.
Examples
iOS 14.0 / macOS 11.0 / tvOS 14.0
Supported Text modifiers
font(SwiftUI.Font)
foregroundColor(Color)
strikethrough(Color)
underline(Color)
kerning(CGFloat)
tracking(CGFloat)
baselineOffset(CGFloat)
Sample usage
This is an example of XML strings that would appear in your Localizable.strings files with words in different order for each different language, namely English and Swedish for this example.
If you are not familiar with that approach, please note that the style information(StyleGroup keys, e.g. <italicStyle>) is also contained in the localized strings.
// This goes to English Localizable.strings
let englishXML = "%1$@ <italicStyle>%2$@</italicStyle>"
// This goes to Swedish Localizable.strings
let swedishXML = "<italicStyle>%2$@</italicStyle> %1$@"
let normalStyle = Style { style in
style.font = .subheadline
style.foregroundColor = .red
}
let italicStyle = Style { style in
style.font = Font.italic(.system(size: 20))()
style.foregroundColor = .blue
}
let styleGroup = StyleGroup(
base: normalStyle,
["italicStyle": italicStyle]
)
Text(
xmlString: String(format: englishXML, "Director", "Martin"),
styleGroup: styleGroup
)
Text(
xmlString: String(format: swedishXML, "Regissör", "Martin"),
styleGroup: styleGroup
)
? Links (not supported)
It is currently not supported in SwiftUI to combine other View(e.g. Button) elements with Text elements using + operator.
Adding tap gesture recognizer to individual parts of Text while using + operator is also not supported, as gesture recognizer modifiers return an opaque type of View, which means it is not Text anymore, then it can't be added to other Text.
If you have only one link within a given paragraph or sentence, consider getting away with adding a tap gesture recognizer to the whole Text of paragraph or sentence which is generated via XMLText library.
If you have multiple links within the same sentence or paragraph, good luck with NSAttributedString and UIViewRepresentable of a UITextView. ?♂️
? Images (not supported)
Similar to links, it is currently not supported in SwiftUI to combine Image elements with Text using + operator.
Custom XML Attributes (not supported)
For example: <italicStyle myAttribute="something"></italicStyle>
This is currently not supported for sake of simplicity and given the fact that the library doesn't have so many capabilities for that to make sense. If there would be some use cases regarding this, a similar approach to XMLDynamicAttributesResolver of SwiftRichString library could be considered in the future.