Select or mark text in UITextView without it becoming first responder

Question

Is this even possible?

I want to select/mark text without text view becoming first responder. I have search implemented in UIPopoverController and then when it's dismissed UIToolBar with Next and Previous button is showed which allows me to select next or previous result and I see that text is being selected because UITextView scrolls down and up respectively but I don't see any selection color or text that's actually selected, just plain black on white.

If it is first responder than everything is working but that's not behavior that I'm trying to achieve.

Any hints?

Tnx for help

Answer 1

If you're working on iOS 6 environment, you can use the attributedText property if UITextView.

If you're working below iOS 6, try using EGOTextView, it's a drop-in replacement with rich text editing, it haven't been supported for a year or so, so I don't really know if it'll work.

You should determine a range for which you'll apply the changes

NSRange range = [textView.text rangeOfString:searchString];

Then create the attributed string

NSMutableAttributedString *attrStr = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:textView.text];
[attrStr addAttribute:NSBackgroundColorAttributeName value:[UIColor cyanColor] range:range];
textView.attributedText = attrStr;