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swiftmacosswiftuitextfieldnstextfield

Change Textfield placeholder color in SwiftUI on macOS

I am trying to set the placeholder color of a Textfield on macOS. I tried:

TextField("", text: $text, prompt: Text("prompt"))
                    .tint(.red)

but that does not seem to get respected.

.accentColor is deprecated (and doesn't work), .foregroundStyle does not affect it (no matter if I put it outside the texfield or directly on the prompt), .colorMultiply is not correct as it applies to the entire field and it's a blending mode, not a setting of an individual color (it makes everything the color you set it to).

I tried to do a custom styling by subclassing TextFieldStyle but couldn't find any modifier that would affect it.

Do I need to resort to a custom NSViewRepresentable and AppKit? I thought SwiftUI would support these features by now. Maybe I'm missing something.

I also have the same problem with the caret color.

Solution

  • You could always show the prompt as an overlay. Then you can style it any way you like:

    TextField("", text: $text)
    .overlay(alignment: .leading) {
        if text.isEmpty {
            Text("prompt")
                .foregroundStyle(.red)
                .padding(.leading, 4)
                .allowsHitTesting(false)
        }
    }

    The caret adopts the color defined as AccentColor in the asset catalog. But of course, this is used in a lot of other places too.