CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xcodelinebreak
user1599440
user1599440

Reputation: 11

How to break a sentence in Xcode

I'm new to this, and new to coding. I'm working on a quiz app, and here is one of the lines of code:

[questions addObject:@"When was the Declaration of Independence signed?"];
[answer addObject:@"1776"];

But when I test it, the question is too long, so it makes the text extra small, how can I make it so half of it will drop down to the next line?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 674

Answers (1)

Matt Wagner
Matt Wagner

Reputation: 100

There are a couple options.

The most basic is to "hard-code" the line break, which is NOT the best option, but I'll spell it out so that you are aware of the difference: this involves splitting the question into two lines by adding a "newline" code (\n) at the point in the question where you want the newline to start. For example:

[questions addObject:@"When was the Declaration\nof Independence signed?"];

This isn't flexible or adaptive, and whether you are using the Interface Builder to configure the object displaying the text (UILabel or UITextView, or other class), the second line of the text may disappear because it falls below the visible area set-up when you create the UILabel or UITextView. This method also goes against best practices because it confounds display with data. There is nothing wrong with your data as it stands.

The better option is to work ONLY with the object displaying the text - which you'd need to do anyway. I'll use UILabel as an example here, but both UILabel and UITextView objects have properties you can set programmatically or in Interface Builder that will effectively enable them not only to stretch their display area instead of shrinking your text, but also to wrap your text at the most logical point based on the new size of the display area.

Programmatically, first make sure that the number of lines for your UILabel object is set to 0:

textLabel.numberOfLines = 0;

You can also do this in Interface Builder if that's where you've created your UILabel.

If that doesn't work, something else is probably not set-up properly - check on the UILabel's metrics to make sure you haven't "locked" its size in any way (its ability to auto-grow or auto-shrink based on the size of its contents).

Upvotes: 2

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