iOS: Highlight spelling errors but disable suggestions? - iphone

Question

My app implements a custom spell checker with its own window and a different workflow from the built-in spell checker in iOS. Therefore I have switched off correction in the main text input view. This disables the built-in suggestions, but also the highlighting of misspelled words.
Is there a way to keep the highlighting, but disable the suggestions?

Answer 1

You can use below code to check weather the printed word is correct spelled or not and if wrong then highlight that word
first import
#import <UIKit/UITextChecker.h>
in your file
-(BOOL)isDictionaryWord:(NSString*)word {
UITextChecker *checker = [[UITextChecker alloc] init];
NSLocale *currentLocale = [NSLocale currentLocale];
NSString *currentLanguage = [currentLocale objectForKey:NSLocaleLanguageCode];
NSRange searchRange = NSMakeRange(0, [word length]);
NSRange misspelledRange = [checker rangeOfMisspelledWordInString:word range: searchRange
startingAt:0 wrap:NO language: currentLanguage ];
return misspelledRange.location == NSNotFound;
}

Answer 2

You will have to roll your own. Here's a rough (iOS 5 and later):
Drop a view with transparent background on top of the text view.
Find the visible range of text like so:
- (NSRange)visibleRangeOfTextView:(UITextView *)textView {
CGRect bounds = textView.bounds;
UITextPosition *start = [textView characterRangeAtPoint:bounds.origin].start;
UITextPosition *end = [textView characterRangeAtPoint:CGPointMake(CGRectGetMaxX(bounds), CGRectGetMaxY(bounds))].end;
return NSMakeRange([textView offsetFromPosition:textView.beginningOfDocument toPosition:start],
[textView offsetFromPosition:start toPosition:end]);
}
Search for misspelled words in that range.
Find their on-screen coordinates using UITextView firstRectForRange method.
Highlight any way you want.
Deciding when to do this is left as an exercise for the eager student :)