Show iPhone cut copy paste menu on UILabel

Question

1. Can we enable the cut copy paste menu for a UILabel as it is for a UITextField?

2. If not, and I need to convert my UILabel to UITextField, how can I enable the cut copy paste menu and not allow the content to be modified?

Answer 1

Override the UITextField instance's textFieldShouldBeginEditing method, and set it to return NO in order to disable editing.

Take a look at the UITextFieldDelegate protocol for more details.

Answer 2

I got the copy & paste menu working on a UILabel, I just had to return YES for canBecomeFirstResponder and later call [label becomeFirstResponder] when the said label was to come on screen. As for returning YES from canBecomeFirstResponder, you can create a custom subclass or patch UILabel using a category:

@implementation UILabel (Clipboard)

- (BOOL) canBecomeFirstResponder
{
    return YES;
}

@end

The category solution feels a bit hackish, but if you know what you’re doing it might be easier than subclassing.