Clickable links in UILabel?

Question

Hi there,

I have been searching for this for hours but I failed. I probably don't even know what should I be looking for.

Many applications have text and in this text are web hyperlinks in rounded rect, when I click them UIWebView opens. What puzzles me is that they often have custom links, for example if words starts with # it is also clickable and aplication responds by opening another view. How can I do that? Is it possible with UILabel or do I need UITextView or something else?

I really hope it is standard functionality and i don't need to subclass anything :/

Answer 1

you might want to take a look at Joe Hewitt's open sourced three20 project. He has an example of how to build custom labels that have hyperlinks.

three20 project

Answer 2

UITextView supports data-detectors in OS3.0, whereas UILabel doesn't.

If you enable the data-detectors on the UITextView and your text contains URLs, phone numbers, etc. they will appear as links.

Answer 3

For fully custom links, you'll need to use a UIWebView - you can intercept the calls out, so that you can go to some other part of your app instead when a link is pressed.

Answer 4

this is exactly what I needed :)

Answer 5

The UIButtonTypeCustom is a clickable label if you don't set any images for it.

Answer 6

fancy uilabel has some problem with multiline links. did you notice? did you find any solution to that? I tried to hack it but no success (so far :).