UITextField secureTextEntry bullets with a custom font?

Question

I’m using a custom font in a UITextField, which has secureTextEntry turned on. When I’m typing in the cell, I see the bullets in my chosen font, but when the field loses focus, those bullets revert to the system standard font. If I tap the field again, they change back to my font, and so on.

Is there a way I can ensure that they continue to display the custom font’s bullets, even when the field is out of focus?

Answer 1

A subclass that works this issue around. Create an arbitrary UITextField, then set the secure property to YES (via KVC in IB).

Actually it implements a comment suggested by lukech. When textfield ends editing, it switches to an arbitrary textfield, then set a bulk of dots into, and some hack in text accessor to always get the actual text the field holds.

@interface SecureTextFieldWithCustomFont : UITextField
@property (nonatomic) BOOL secure;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *actualText;
@end


@implementation SecureTextFieldWithCustomFont


-(void)awakeFromNib
{
    [super awakeFromNib];

    if (self.secureTextEntry)
    {
        // Listen for changes.
        [self addTarget:self action:@selector(editingDidBegin) forControlEvents:UIControlEventEditingDidBegin];
        [self addTarget:self action:@selector(editingDidChange) forControlEvents:UIControlEventEditingChanged];
        [self addTarget:self action:@selector(editingDidFinish) forControlEvents:UIControlEventEditingDidEnd];
    }
}

-(NSString*)text
{
    if (self.editing || self.secure == NO)
    { return [super text]; }

    else
    { return self.actualText; }
}

-(void)editingDidBegin
{
    self.secureTextEntry = YES;
    self.text = self.actualText;
}

-(void)editingDidChange
{ self.actualText = self.text; }

-(void)editingDidFinish
{
    self.secureTextEntry = NO;
    self.actualText = self.text;
    self.text = [self dotPlaceholder];
}

-(NSString*)dotPlaceholder
{
    int index = 0;
    NSMutableString *dots = @"".mutableCopy;
    while (index < self.text.length)
    { [dots appendString:@"•"]; index++; }
    return dots;
}


@end

May be augmented to work with non NIB instantiations, handling default values, etc, but you probably get the idea.