Question

I have a custom background for an UITextField. But the first 20 pixels of the UITextField are taken by the design. The text should start 30 pixels from the left. I have searched quite a bit, but I couldn’t find it. I have seen things like overriding properties, but is that really necessary for something this basic?

Answer 1

I’ve seen two different solutions:

• add an empty UIView as a leftView property of UITextView
• subclass UITextField, and override methods textRectForBounds: editingRectForBounds: – just return frame with insets applied

IMHO the second one is more elegant.

Example:
.h:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface BlackTextField : UITextField

@property (nonatomic, assign) CGFloat paddingRight, paddingTop, paddingLeft, paddingBottom;
@end

.m:

#import "BlackTextField.h"
#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

@implementation BlackTextField
@synthesize paddingTop, paddingBottom, paddingLeft, paddingRight;

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder {
    self = [super initWithCoder:coder];
    if (self) {        
        self.paddingRight   = 10;
        self.paddingLeft    = 10;
        self.paddingTop     = 5;
        self.paddingBottom  = 5;        
    }
    return self;
}

- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds 
{
    return CGRectMake(bounds.origin.x + self.paddingLeft, bounds.origin.y + self.paddingTop, bounds.size.width - self.paddingLeft - self.paddingRight, bounds.size.height - self.paddingTop - self.paddingBottom);
}

- (CGRect)editingRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds 
{
    return [self textRectForBounds:bounds];
}

@end