How to change text color of PlaceHolder in UISearchBar? (iOS 13)

Question

After looking for updated ( iOS 13 ) answers, I didn't find any solutions to this simple problem:

How to change the textColor of the placeholder in an UISearchBar ?

My app doesn't handle Light/Dark mode. I don't want the system to change my UIPlaceHolder text color. I want it to be always white .

---

    if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
        let attrString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "My PlaceHolder")
        attrString.addAttributes([NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.white], range: NSRange(location: 0, length: attrString.length))
        searchController.searchBar.searchTextField.attributedPlaceholder = attrString
    }

I expected this code to work. I thought the new property searchTextField would have made it easier to customize my UISearchBar .

EDIT:

This code kind of works in the viewDidAppear method:

if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
     searchController.searchBar.searchTextField.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "My PlaceHolder", attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.white.withAlphaComponent(0.80)])
 }

The issue is that the color is changing when you scroll up and down.

Answer 1

As you already mentioned, your code works only in viewDidAppear , which makes the placeholder to flicker from the default gray color to the preferred color.

However, there seem to be a time before viewDidAppear (I couldn't figure it out when exactly), to change the placeholder before the view actually appears.

I suppose, this may be connected to how iOS handles light/dark mode and/or an iOS bug.

The solution I came out with that works around the issue:

override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated)

    if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
        let placeholder = NSAttributedString(string: "Search",
                                             attributes: [
                                                .foregroundColor: UIColor.white
        ])
        let searchTextField = searchBar.searchTextField

        // Key workaround to be able to set attributedPlaceholder
        DispatchQueue.global().async {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                searchTextField.attributedPlaceholder = placeholder
            }
        }
    }
}

There seem to be no performance and/or other downside to this method.

If anybody else comes with a better approach, feel free to collaborate.

Answer 2

you can set this with UITextField appearance property. check this line of code

 UITextField.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UISearchBar.self]).defaultTextAttributes = [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.white]

Answer 3

I guess the reason why it doesn't work is probably the searchController.searchBar.searchTextField = nil you got.

searchTextField is a new property for iOS 13 , which can be done if you only support >= iOS 13 . If you want to adapt to the previous version of iOS 13 , you can traverse UISearchBar to find UISearchBarTextField and directly set the found UISearchBarTextField .

The code I looked up is probably like this, I put it in the Category of UIView .

- (UIView *)findChildViewClass:(Class)childViewClass fromView:(UIView *)fromView{
    for (UIView *subView in fromView.subviews) {
        if ([subView isMemberOfClass:childViewClass]) {
            return subView;
        }
        UIView *finalView = [self findChildViewClass:childViewClass fromView:subView];
        if (finalView) {
            return finalView;
        }else{
            continue;
        }
    }
    return nil;
}

When used, you can customize a searchTextField property to inherit from UITextField to save the found value.

_searchTextField = (UITextField *)[searchBar findChildViewClass:NSClassFromString(@"UISearchBarTextField") fromView: searchBar];

This is what I use now, it is working, I hope to be useful to you.