How can I change the placeholder color of a UITextField?

Question

I have tried the two options everybody answers in this forum but nothing works for me... I have tried to override:

- (void)drawPlaceholderInRect:(CGRect)rect

and also:

[self.myTextField setValue:[UIColor redColor] forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

but nothing happens... Still the same gray color... Maybe I have to inherit something, I don't know... Any suggestion?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 07 '17 at 13:40

4

the simplest way to do this:

UILabel *placeholderAppearance;
if (@available(iOS 9, *)) {
    placeholderAppearance = [UILabel appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses:@[[UITextField class]]];
} else {
    placeholderAppearance = [UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UITextField class], nil];
}
placeholderAppearance.textColor = [UIColor redColor];

[EDITED] After using this I got to know another bug, the above did the job but it also reset the color of all other labels in my view to Default Black. Then to overcome this, I had to sub class the UILabel class and use my class in all other labels in my view.

edited Dec 07 '17 at 13:40

Stanislav P.

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answered Apr 04 '13 at 17:18

Jibran K

885
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20

thanks! one more thing: is it possible to also change the editing blue vertical bar color? – sergiocg90 Apr 13 '13 at 09:12
Don't really know about this but I would like to add something to the above placeholder work around. After using this I got to know another bug, the above did the job but it also reset the color of all other labels in my view to Default Black. Then to overcome this, I had to sub class the UILabel class and use my class in all other labels in my view. – Jibran K Apr 13 '13 at 20:39

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 28 '12 at 19:32

See drawPlaceholderInRect: of UITextField. You need to subclass UITextField and override this method for configuring graphics context with desired text color and call super implementation.

By the time this method is called, the current graphics context is already configured with the default environment and text color for drawing. In your overridden method, you can configure the current context further and then invoke super to do the actual drawing or do the drawing yourself. If you do render the text yourself, you should not invoke super.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 24 '14 at 10:43

0

From iOS6 you can use the attributed placeholder:

textfield.attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:textfield.placeholder attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor redColor]}];

answered Jul 24 '14 at 10:43

Angel G. Olloqui

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How can I change the placeholder color of a UITextField?

3 Answers3