UITextView add line break before each line starts

Question

How can I insert a line break before a new line starts in a UITextView? Images below should shed more light.
Orginal
Final Outcome

Answer 1

If you want to display text from two sources but with the text appearing in one view where lines from each source alternate you could create a class like in the example below.

I created a subclass of UIView which comes with two UITextViews as Subviews. Texts are set through the DoubleTextView class.

The UITextViews have a difference in origin so text will appear to alternate lines.

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Benefits:

• Don't worry about which text is original and which text you added programmatically.
• Easy to set different styles

Possible downside:

• Only one UITextView will be editable, since one will always be untouchable ( it is covered )

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Result:

Some better maths are needed to position or space the text ideally.

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Code:

Convert string to NSMutableAttributedString and set line-spacing:

func convertLineHeight(string string_I: String) -> NSMutableAttributedString {

    let style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
    style.lineSpacing = lineSpacing + self.font.lineHeight
    let attributes = [NSParagraphStyleAttributeName : style]
    let attributedString =  NSMutableAttributedString(string: string_I, attributes:attributes)

    return attributedString

}

Offset one view:

let alphaPoint = CGPoint(x: 0, y: (lineSpacing / 2) + self.font.lineHeight)
// this is almost perfect. is off by a few pixels.

Full class:

class DoubleTextView : UIView {

    private var alphaTextView : UITextView!
    private var betaTextView : UITextView!

    private var lineSpacing : CGFloat = 0

    var font : UIFont = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(UIFont.systemFontSize()) {
        didSet {
            alphaTextView.font = self.font
            betaTextView.font = self.font
        }
    }

    var alphaText : String = "" {
        didSet {
            alphaTextView.attributedText = convertLineHeight(string: alphaText)
        }
    }
    var betaText : String = "" {
        didSet {
            betaTextView.attributedText = convertLineHeight(string: betaText)
        }
    }

    var alphaAttributedText : NSMutableAttributedString = NSMutableAttributedString() {
        didSet {
            alphaTextView.attributedText = convertLineHeight(attributedString: alphaAttributedText)
        }
    }

    var betaAttributedText : NSMutableAttributedString = NSMutableAttributedString() {
        didSet {
            betaTextView.attributedText = convertLineHeight(attributedString: betaAttributedText)
        }
    }

    init(frame: CGRect, lineSpacing lineSpacing_I: CGFloat) {

        lineSpacing = lineSpacing_I

        super.init(frame: frame)

        var adjustedSize = frame.size
        adjustedSize.height -= ((lineSpacing / 2) + self.font.lineHeight)

        let alphaPoint = CGPoint(x: 0, y: (lineSpacing / 2) + self.font.lineHeight)

        alphaTextView = UITextView(frame: CGRect(origin: alphaPoint, size: adjustedSize))
        alphaTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
        alphaTextView.font = self.font
        betaTextView = UITextView(frame: CGRect(origin: CGPointZero, size: adjustedSize))
        betaTextView.font = self.font
        betaTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()



        self.addSubview(alphaTextView)
        self.addSubview(betaTextView)
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }


    private func convertLineHeight(string string_I: String) -> NSMutableAttributedString {

        let style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
        style.lineSpacing = lineSpacing + self.font.lineHeight
        let attributes = [NSParagraphStyleAttributeName : style]
        let attributedString =  NSMutableAttributedString(string: string_I, attributes:attributes)

        return attributedString

    }

    private func convertLineHeight(attributedString attributedString_I: NSMutableAttributedString) -> NSMutableAttributedString {

        let style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
        style.lineSpacing = lineSpacing + self.font.lineHeight
        let attributes = [NSParagraphStyleAttributeName : style]
        attributedString_I.addAttributes(attributes, range: (attributedString_I.string as NSString).rangeOfString(attributedString_I.string))
        return attributedString_I

    }


}


var test = DoubleTextView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 200, height: 400), lineSpacing: 20)
test.backgroundColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

test.alphaText = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

test.betaText = "This is the second text. It shows comments, edits, suggestions, thoughts about the first"

Answer 2

Not sure this is the best solution but it works for now. (Very open to other answers). Thanks to RMenke for the idea

    let outputString = "";
    let splitInput = [String]()
    let input = incomingText
    outPut =  input.componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet(.newlineCharacterSet())
    for index in splitInput{
   self.outputString +=  index + "\n\n"   
   }
   print(outputString)

Answer 3

txtField.text = textField.text.stringByAppendingString("\n")

answer/idea from chrissukhram