Moving the Cursor to the Beginning of Uitextfield

Getting and Setting Cursor Position of UITextField and UITextView in Swift

The following content applies to both UITextField and UITextView.

Useful information

The very beginning of the text field text:

let startPosition: UITextPosition = textField.beginningOfDocument

The very end of the text field text:

let endPosition: UITextPosition = textField.endOfDocument

The currently selected range:

let selectedRange: UITextRange? = textField.selectedTextRange

Get cursor position

if let selectedRange = textField.selectedTextRange {

    let cursorPosition = textField.offset(from: textField.beginningOfDocument, to: selectedRange.start)

    print("\(cursorPosition)")
}

Set cursor position

In order to set the position, all of these methods are actually setting a range with the same start and end values.

To the beginning

let newPosition = textField.beginningOfDocument
textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: newPosition, to: newPosition)

To the end

let newPosition = textField.endOfDocument
textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: newPosition, to: newPosition)

To one position to the left of the current cursor position

// only if there is a currently selected range
if let selectedRange = textField.selectedTextRange {

    // and only if the new position is valid
    if let newPosition = textField.position(from: selectedRange.start, offset: -1) {

        // set the new position
        textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: newPosition, to: newPosition)
    }
}

To an arbitrary position

Start at the beginning and move 5 characters to the right.

let arbitraryValue: Int = 5
if let newPosition = textField.position(from: textField.beginningOfDocument, offset: arbitraryValue) {

    textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: newPosition, to: newPosition)
}

Related

Select all text

textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: textField.beginningOfDocument, to: textField.endOfDocument)

Select a range of text

// Range: 3 to 7
let startPosition = textField.position(from: textField.beginningOfDocument, offset: 3)
let endPosition = textField.position(from: textField.beginningOfDocument, offset: 7)

if startPosition != nil && endPosition != nil {
    textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: startPosition!, to: endPosition!)
}

Insert text at the current cursor position

textField.insertText("Hello")

Notes

• Use textField.becomeFirstResponder() to give focus to the text field and make the keyboard appear.

• See this answer for how to get the text at some range.

See also

• How to Create a Range in Swift

UITextField set cursor to start text position

Set your view controller (or some other appropriate object) as the text field's delegate and implement the textFieldDidBeginEditing: method like this:

- (void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField
{
    UITextPosition *beginning = [textField beginningOfDocument];
    [textField setSelectedTextRange:[textField textRangeFromPosition:beginning
                                                          toPosition:beginning]];
}

Note that setSelectedTextRange: is a protocol method of UITextInput (which UITextField implements), so you won't find it directly in the UITextField documentation.

Moving cursor at beginning UItextview

This works in my testing on the iOS 6.0 simulator:

- (void)textViewDidBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView {
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        textView.selectedRange = NSMakeRange(0, 0);
    });
}

I guess it updates the selection based on the touch location after it sends the textViewDidBeginEditing: message. The dispatch_async works around that.

Can't move cursor in UITextField

The answer here was exactly what @juanreyesv pointed out in the comments! becomeFirstResponder call was moved to viewDidAppear rather than viewWillAppear and now it's working!

Cursor at the start of UITextField

Try this instead:

func textFieldDidBeginEditing(_ textField: UITextField) {
    if textField == self.textName{
        let beginning = textField.beginningOfDocument
        textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: beginning, to: beginning)
    }
}

So remove textEmail.becomeFirstResponder() and use textField.textRange instead of textEmail.textRangeFromPosition.

And inside of the textFieldDidBeginEditing function use the parameter textField as shown in my example above.

UITextField starting cursor position is wrong

You need to always update your UI from the main thread:

DispatchQueue.main.async {
    textField.selectedTextRange = textField.textRange(from: textField.endOfDocument, to: textField.endOfDocument)
}

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