STTextView

Performant macOS and iOS TextView with line numbers and much more. (NSTextView/UITextView reimplementation)

The goal of this project is to build NSTextView/UITextView replacement reusable component utilizing TextKit 2 framework. due to many good reasons.

The component is mainly developed to serve Swift Studio needs as a source code editor.

TextKit 2 was announced during WWDC 2021 as a TextKit 1 replacement for text layout and whatnot. Apple announced that NSTextView, the view component specialized for text editing, will adopt TextKit 2 and provide support along TextKit 1 bit. As I started to learn more about NSTextView + TextKit2, I realized that as of today (Feb 2022), neither NSTextView nor TextKit 2 classes are fully functional. Along the way, I reported several bug reports to Apple requesting DTS (support tickets). Eventually, I got blocked by specific bugs that pushed me to start this project.

✨ Features

macOS text system integration
Performant Text editing
Display line numbers
Display invisible characters
Customization of colors and fonts
Toggle line wrapping on and off
Adjust the height of lines
Highlight/Select ranges in the text view
Multi-cursor editing
Search/Replace the text
Spelling and Grammar
Dictation
Customizable Completion support
Smooth scrolling of long content
LTR (Left To Right) / RTL (Right To Left) layout
Undo/Redo
Plugins
Anchored annotations (via plugin)
Source Code syntax highlighting (via plugin)

sttextview-30-07-2024.mp4

🤝 Support & Sponsors

The financial sustainability of the project is possible thanks to the ongoing contributions from our GitHub Sponsors

🗓️ Roadmap

STTextView is already well-suited as a text editor component. However, it still needs improvements before the release of v1.0

Suggest or vote for new features: Feature Requests

Known issues

text dragging (partially implemented)

🚀 Getting Started

STTextView is distributed using the Swift Package Manager. Install it in a project by adding it as a dependency in your Package.swift manifest or through “Package Dependencies” in Xcode project settings

let package = Package(
    dependencies: [
        .package(url: "https://github.com/krzyzanowskim/STTextView", from: "1.0.0")
    ]
)

Demo Application

The demo applications TextEdit and TextEdit.SwiftUI lets you explore the library.

Plugins

Plugins in an STTextView component offer additional functionalities and customizations beyond the simple text display. They enhance the core capabilities of the text view by adding features such as syntax highlighting, word count tracking, and more. These plugins expand the STTextView's utility while maintaining a modular and adaptable software structure.

Plugin-Neon Source Code Syntax Highlighting with TreeSitter and Neon.
Plugin-TextFormation Typing completions with TextFormation.
Plugin-Annotations Anchored annotations (eg. inlined error message)) plugin.
Plugin-Template Dummy plugin template repository ready to build new plugin.
... add more plugins

Usage

SwiftUI

The TextView is a SwiftUI view that wraps the STTextView.

Support for rich text (attributed string)
Faster than SwiftUI.TextEdit (https://twitter.com/krzyzanowskim/status/1677628085217243137)

import STTextViewSwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {

    @State private var text = AttributedString("Hello World!")
    @State private var selection: NSRange?

    var body: some View {
        TextView(
            text: $text,
            selection: $selection,
            options: [.wrapLines, .highlightSelectedLine],
            plugins: [plugin1(), plugin2()]
        )
        .textViewFont(.preferredFont(forTextStyle: .body))
    }
}

Create a TextView

The STTextView is an NSView subclass and can be initialized like any other view. It has an API that is similar to that of NSTextView.

import STTextView

let textView = STTextView()
view.addSubView(textView)

(macOS) add to scroll view

let textView = STTextView()
let scrollView = NSScrollView()
scrollView.documentView = textView

let scrollView = STTextView.scrollableTextView()
let textView = scrollView.documentView as! STTextView

Customize

The text view can be customized in a variety of ways.

let paragraph = NSParagraphStyle.default.mutableCopy() as! NSMutableParagraphStyle
// Set the line-height to 110%
paragraph.lineHeightMultiple = 1.1
paragraph.defaultTabInterval = 28

// Default Paragraph style
textView.typingAttributes[.paragraphStyle] = paragraph

// Set default font
textView.font = NSFont.monospacedSystemFont(ofSize: 14, weight: .regular)

// Set default text color
textView.textColor = .textColor

// Set text value
textView.text = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean ornare lobortis sem a vulputate."
textView.addAttributes([.foregroundColor: NSColor.red], range: NSRange(location: 10, length: 5))

// Wrap/No wrap lines to editor width
textView.isHorizontallyResizable = true

// Highlight the selected line.
textView.highlightSelectedLine = true

Add gutter with line numbers

textView.showLineNumbers = true
textView.gutterView?.drawSeparator = true

(macOS) Enable an optional search-and-replace find interface inside a view, usually a scroll view.

textView.isIncrementalSearchingEnabled = true
textView.textFinder.incrementalSearchingShouldDimContentView = true

🐛 TextKit 2 Bug Reports List

List of TextKit 2 issues and bugs related to NSTextView and the TextKit framework I reported to Apple so far:

FB9856587: TextKit2 unexpected additional line fragment for the last line
FB9925766: NSTextSelectionNavigation.deletionRanges only works at the end of the word
FB9925647: NSTextLayoutManager.replaceContents(in range: with attributedString:) is documented but is not part of the public API
FB9907261: NSTextElementProvider.replaceContents(in:with:) does not replace content as documented
FB9692714: Rendering attributes do not draw properly
FB9886911: NSTextView can't properly layout and display long lines (this one is nasty since it causes the view to "jump" whenever text attribute updates)
FB9713415: NSTextView drawInsertionPoint(in:color:turnedOn) is never called
FB9971054: NSLayoutManager.enumerateCaretOffsetsInLineFragment ignores starting location
FB9971054: NSTextView assert on selection when setup with TextKit2
FB9743449, FB10019859: NSTextContentStorage.textElements(for:) returns no element, while enumerateTextElements does return elements
FB11898356: textSelections(interactingAt:inContainerAt:anchors:modifiers:selecting:bounds:) produces wrong selections for certain locations
FB12726775: Documentation to the NSTextParagraph.paragraphContentRange is incorrect
FB13272586: NSTextContainer.size default value is not as documented
FB13290979: NSTextContainer.lineFragmentPadding does not affect end of the fragment usageBoundsForTextContainer rectangle
FB13291926: NSTextLayoutManager.usageBoundsForTextContainer observer is never trigerred
FB13789916: NSTextInputClient.setMarkedText provide bogus selection range for Chinese keyboard
FB14700414: NSTextList doesn't work since macOS 14 (regression)
FB15131180: TextKit extra line frame is incorrect and does not respect layout fragment size (regression)

... I'm aware that the list of issues is not complete. I managed to workaround most of the problems in STTextView.

Why ST?

(ST prefix stands for "Swift sTudio" because SS is not good prefix since 1939)

Suggestions or Feedback

Start a new discussion topic or a pull request.

I'd love to hear from you! Get in touch via X/Twitter @krzyzanowskim, Mastodon @krzyzanowskim@mastodon.social.

License

Open Source license

If you are creating an open-source application under a license compatible with the GNU GPL license v3, you may use STTextView under the terms of the GPLv3.

Commercial license

Get one starting from €5.

If you want to use STTextView to develop non-open-sourced products and applications, the Commercial license is appropriate. With this option, your source code is kept proprietary. You won't have to change your whole application source code to an open-source license. Purchase a STTextView Commercial License