How to install Highlighter with CocoaPods?

Add `pod 'Highlighter'` to your Podfile and run `pod install`. The library is available through CocoaPods as per the README, making dependency management easy for iOS projects.

Can Highlighter highlight text in a UIWebView or WKWebView?

No, Highlighter only supports UILabel, UITextView, UITextField, and UIButton. For web views, you'd need to use native web view APIs or custom solutions to manipulate HTML content directly.

Highlighter vs manual text highlighting in Swift: which is better?

Highlighter saves development time by automating subview traversal, but manual highlighting offers more control for complex custom views. Choose Highlighter for standard UI components; use manual methods for fine-tuned performance or non-supported views.

How to customize the highlight color in Highlighter?

Pass a dictionary with attributes like `[NSBackgroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.yellow]` in the `highlight` parameter. You can define any NSAttributedString key-value pairs, allowing full customization of text appearance.

Does Highlighter work with SwiftUI?

Highlighter is designed for UIKit and doesn't natively support SwiftUI. For SwiftUI apps, you'd need to bridge to UIKit views using UIViewRepresentable or explore alternative highlighting techniques within SwiftUI's framework.

Is Highlighter efficient for highlighting in large UITableViews?

While convenient, automatic traversal in each cell might slow down scrolling if views are complex. Optimize by limiting search types or caching highlights, but performance can degrade in data-heavy lists with deep nesting.

How to animate text highlights with Highlighter?

Highlighter doesn't include animation features; it applies static attributes. To animate, layer custom animations on top, such as using UIView.animate with gradual attribute changes or combining with other libraries.

Open-Awesome

Highlighter

MITSwift1.4.0

A Swift library for highlighting text in UI objects like UILabel, UITextView, and UIButton within iOS views.

GitHub

925 stars54 forks0 contributors

What is Highlighter?

Highlighter is a Swift library for iOS that allows developers to programmatically highlight text within UI objects like UILabel, UITextView, UITextField, and UIButton. It solves the problem of manually searching and styling text in complex view hierarchies by automatically finding matching text in subviews and applying customizable attributes.

Target Audience

iOS developers building apps with search functionality, dynamic text highlighting, or data-driven UI components, particularly those using UITableView or custom view hierarchies.

Value Proposition

Developers choose Highlighter for its dead-simple API, automatic subview traversal, and flexibility in targeting specific UI component types, reducing boilerplate code for text highlighting compared to manual implementations.

Overview

🖍 Highlight whatever you want!

Use Cases

Best For

Highlighting search results in UITableView or UICollectionView cells
Emphasizing keywords or phrases in dynamic text content within iOS apps
Building custom search interfaces with real-time text highlighting
Adding text emphasis in UIButton titles or UITextField placeholders
Implementing accessibility features that require visual text differentiation
Creating tutorial or onboarding screens that highlight specific UI elements

Not Ideal For

Cross-platform applications requiring text highlighting on Android or web
Projects using custom or third-party UI components not derived from UILabel, UITextView, UITextField, or UIButton
Performance-critical apps with deeply nested view hierarchies where automatic traversal could cause UI lag
Features needing animated or interactive text highlights, as Highlighter only applies static attributes

Pros & Cons

Pros

Automatic Subview Detection

Automatically traverses view hierarchies to find and highlight text in supported UI components like UILabel and UITextView, eliminating manual search code as shown in the README's single method call.

Customizable Highlight Attributes

Allows developers to specify dictionaries for both normal and highlighted text states, enabling full control over appearance with attributes like background color or font, as demonstrated in the examples.

Type-Specific Search Control

Can limit highlighting to specific UI types, such as only UIButton, for targeted and efficient text emphasis, providing flexibility beyond broad searches.

Simple API Integration

With a single method call like `view.highlight(...)`, integration is straightforward, reducing boilerplate compared to custom implementations, as emphasized in the README's philosophy.

Cons

Limited Component Support

Only supports UILabel, UITextView, UITextField, and UIButton, so highlighting in other views like WKWebView or custom components requires manual workarounds or alternative libraries.

Performance Overhead in Complex Views

Automatic traversal of subviews can be inefficient for very deep or numerous views, potentially impacting UI responsiveness in large UITableViews or complex hierarchies.

No Built-in Animation Support

Lacks features for animated or interactive highlights, as it only applies static attributes, limiting use cases where dynamic text effects are needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

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