CSS and Attributed Strings

Can you initialize an attributed string with CSS-populated HTML? This question popped up in #iphonedev. The answer is: kind of. HTML initialization is meant for lightweight use, not for full page layout. But yes, you can.

Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 2.55.14 PM

This question in particular had to do with whether you could customize  list bullets:

Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 3.05.37 PM

As far as I know, you cannot use externally sourced images but if you worked hard enough (and I’m not willing to do that), there are always attributed strings image attachments.

The upshot of all this is 1: I touched CSS. 2: I’m busy trying to figure out error naming. and 3: I figured that if it’s really important you’ll either use a web view or work out a post-hoc way to insert attachments that I’m not willing to spend any time on here but someone will point me to them if I throw out a post.

There you go.

source:

enum AttributedStringError : ErrorType {case Unconstructable}
func stringWithHTMLString(var string : String) throws -> NSAttributedString {
    string = string.stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet(NSCharacterSet.whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet())
    if !string.hasPrefix("<html>") {string = "<html>" + string}
    if !string.hasSuffix("</html>") {string = string + "</html>"}
    guard let htmlData = string.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding) else {
        throw AttributedStringError.Unconstructable}
    var attributes : NSDictionary = [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute : NSHTMLTextDocumentType]
    let options = [String : AnyObject]()
    let aptr = AutoreleasingUnsafeMutablePointer<NSDictionary?>(&attributes)
    return try NSAttributedString(data: htmlData, options: options, documentAttributes: aptr)
}

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