Selection, Menus, and Gestures

Authored against iOS 26.x / Swift 6.x / Xcode 26.x.

This skill covers the customization seams that UIKit and AppKit expose on stock text views: the edit menu, link and text-item interaction, gesture priorities, cursor color, selection rects. The protocol that text views implement underneath (UITextInput) is a different skill. The patterns here are clues — before claiming a delegate signature, fetch the current API via Sosumi (sosumi.ai/documentation/uikit/uieditmenuinteraction, sosumi.ai/documentation/uikit/uitextitem); the iOS 17 text-item APIs replaced large parts of the older link delegate.

If a tap is going to the wrong handler, the answer is usually a gesture-coordination question, not a configuration question. Read the gesture recognizer list on the live view in the debugger before tweaking delegate methods.

Contents

• Edit menu on iOS
• Text items: links, attachments, custom tags
• Legacy link delegate
• Cursor and selection appearance
• Constraining selection
• Gesture coordination
• Edit menu on macOS
• Common Mistakes
• References

Edit menu on iOS

UIEditMenuInteraction is the modern edit-menu host. UITextView adds it automatically; you customize either by overriding canPerformAction(_:withSender:) for built-in selectors or by adding your own UIEditMenuInteraction and rewriting the menu in the delegate.

final class AnnotatableTextView: UITextView {
    override func canPerformAction(_ action: Selector, withSender sender: Any?) -> Bool {
        if action == #selector(defineWord(_:)) {
            return selectedRange.length > 0
        }
        return super.canPerformAction(action, withSender: sender)
    }

    @objc func defineWord(_ sender: Any?) {
        let word = (text as NSString).substring(with: selectedRange)
        // present definition
    }
}

For larger menus or contextual menus on non-text views, install the interaction directly and rewrite the menu in the delegate:

class EditorView: UIView {
    let editMenu = UIEditMenuInteraction(delegate: self)
    override init(frame: CGRect) {
        super.init(frame: frame); addInteraction(editMenu)
    }
}

extension EditorView: UIEditMenuInteractionDelegate {
    func editMenuInteraction(
        _ interaction: UIEditMenuInteraction,
        menuFor configuration: UIEditMenuConfiguration,
        suggestedActions: [UIMenuElement]
    ) -> UIMenu? {
        let bold = UIAction(title: "Bold", image: UIImage(systemName: "bold")) { [weak self] _ in
            self?.toggleBold()
        }
        return UIMenu(children: suggestedActions + [bold])
    }
}

UIMenuController is the deprecated predecessor; calls still link, but new code should not start there. The replacement happened in iOS 16 and the old API will eventually stop responding.

Text items: links, attachments, custom tags

iOS 17 generalized link interaction into UITextItem. The same delegate methods now handle URL links, NSTextAttachment taps, and arbitrary tagged ranges, which lets you make non-link text interactive without forcing the link tint color.

func textView(_ textView: UITextView,
              primaryActionFor textItem: UITextItem,
              defaultAction: UIAction) -> UIAction? {
    switch textItem.content {
    case .link(let url):
        return UIAction { _ in self.handleLink(url) }
    case .textAttachment(let attachment):
        return UIAction { _ in self.handleAttachment(attachment) }
    case .tag(let tag):
        return UIAction { _ in self.handleTag(tag) }
    @unknown default:
        return defaultAction
    }
}

func textView(_ textView: UITextView,
              menuConfigurationFor textItem: UITextItem,
              defaultMenu: UIMenu) -> UITextItem.MenuConfiguration? {
    switch textItem.content {
    case .tag(let tag):
        let viewProfile = UIAction(title: "View Profile") { _ in self.showProfile(for: tag) }
        return UITextItem.MenuConfiguration(menu: UIMenu(children: [viewProfile] + defaultMenu.children))
    default:
        return UITextItem.MenuConfiguration(menu: defaultMenu)
    }
}

The .uiTextItemTag attribute makes a range tappable without the .link styling. .link forces the foreground color to tintColor and an underline; .uiTextItemTag leaves the range visually unchanged but routes taps and long-presses through the same delegate methods.

let s = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "@username is here")
s.addAttribute(.uiTextItemTag,
               value: "user:123",
               range: NSRange(location: 0, length: 9))
// Tappable, but renders in the default text color

Legacy link delegate

textView(_:shouldInteractWith:in:interaction:) predates the text-item API and only handles .link ranges. iOS 17 marked it deprecated, but it's still everywhere in existing code and works on iOS 13+:

func textView(_ textView: UITextView,
              shouldInteractWith URL: URL,
              in characterRange: NSRange,
              interaction: UITextItemInteraction) -> Bool {
    switch interaction {
    case .invokeDefaultAction:
        handleLink(URL); return false
    case .presentActions, .preview:
        return true
    @unknown default:
        return true
    }
}

This delegate stays silent unless the text view is non-editable and selectable — isEditable = true routes link taps through editing first, and isSelectable = false disables interaction entirely. If a link is set up correctly but nothing fires, those two flags are the first thing to check.

Cursor and selection appearance

The cursor color and the link tint share a single property: tintColor. There is no separate cursor color API. If links and the cursor need different colors, leave tintColor for the cursor and override linkTextAttributes for links:

textView.tintColor = .systemRed
textView.linkTextAttributes = [
    .foregroundColor: UIColor.systemBlue,
    .underlineStyle: NSUnderlineStyle.single.rawValue,
]

Cursor width is system-rendered — there's no public knob for it on a stock text view. A custom view can render its own cursor through UITextSelectionDisplayInteraction (covered in txt-uitextinput).

To suppress the cursor entirely on a presentation-mode text view that still allows selection, override caretRect(for:) to return .zero:

final class NoCaretTextView: UITextView {
    override func caretRect(for position: UITextPosition) -> CGRect { .zero }
}

Constraining selection

If parts of the document are protected (read-only headers, immutable code blocks), push selection out of the protected range in textViewDidChangeSelection:

func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView) {
    let sel = textView.selectedRange
    if NSIntersectionRange(sel, protectedRange).length > 0 {
        textView.selectedRange = NSRange(location: NSMaxRange(protectedRange), length: 0)
    }
}

This runs on the main thread synchronously after every selection change, so the user sees the cursor jump rather than land inside the protected region.

For per-line or word-granularity selection differences, override selectionRects(for:) on a UITextView subclass — it lets you change how the selection is drawn without changing what the selection actually covers in storage.

Gesture coordination

UITextView installs many gesture recognizers — tap-to-position, double-tap to word-select, long-press for the loupe and edit menu, and on iPadOS 14+ the Scribble recognizer. Adding your own gestures often produces "the recognizer fires sometimes" bugs because the system gestures are claiming the touch first.

Two coordination tools matter. gestureRecognizerShouldBegin lets you reject system gestures over your own UI elements:

final class CustomGestureTextView: UITextView {
    override func gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(_ g: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
        if g is UILongPressGestureRecognizer,
           isOverCustomElement(g.location(in: self)) {
            return false
        }
        return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(g)
    }
}

UIGestureRecognizerDelegate.shouldRecognizeSimultaneously lets a custom recognizer coexist with system ones:

func gestureRecognizer(_ g: UIGestureRecognizer,
                       shouldRecognizeSimultaneouslyWith other: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
    return true
}

Touch hit-testing is in view coordinates; the gesture recognizer can be on a parent view but the location is always reported relative to the view passed to location(in:).

Edit menu on macOS

AppKit doesn't have a UIEditMenuInteraction analog — the contextual menu on right-click uses NSMenu, configured per NSTextView via menu(for:) or by replacing the view's menu property:

final class CustomTextView: NSTextView {
    override func menu(for event: NSEvent) -> NSMenu? {
        let menu = super.menu(for: event) ?? NSMenu()
        let bold = NSMenuItem(title: "Bold",
                              action: #selector(toggleBold(_:)),
                              keyEquivalent: "")
        menu.addItem(bold)
        return menu
    }
}

NSTextView also dispatches its own selectors for the standard items (cut, copy, paste, look up). Override validateMenuItem(_:) to enable or disable specific items per selection.

Common Mistakes

1. Using `.link` to make non-link text tappable, then trying to suppress the styling. .link is documented to force tintColor and underline. Removing those overrides is fragile across iOS versions. Use .uiTextItemTag instead — it's the iOS 17+ way to route taps without altering text color.

1. Configuring link delegate but `isSelectable = false` on the text view. The link delegate never fires. The view must be selectable for the system to deliver link interaction events. If the view is also isEditable = true, taps go through editing first; non-editable + selectable is the link-only configuration.

1. Trying to set a separate cursor color and link color via `tintColor`. They share the same property. The cursor reads tintColor; links read linkTextAttributes[.foregroundColor] if set, otherwise fall back to tintColor. Override the dictionary to split them.

1. Adding gesture recognizers without coordination, then debugging "sometimes fires." The system gesture wins because it was added first and isn't told to share. Either reject the system recognizer in gestureRecognizerShouldBegin for the regions you care about, or set shouldRecognizeSimultaneously to true on your delegate.

1. Mutating the menu in `editMenuInteraction(_:menuFor:suggestedActions:)` by index. The suggested actions list changes between iOS versions and selection states. Append by content (look up actions by identifier) rather than mutating positions.

1. Calling `UIMenuController` API. Deprecated since iOS 16 and likely to stop functioning. Migrate to UIEditMenuInteraction.

1. Right-click menu on macOS not showing custom items. AppKit assembles the menu through validateMenuItem(_:) — if the action's selector isn't reachable on the responder chain, the item is hidden, not greyed out. Verify the selector resolves on the view or its delegate.

References

• txt-uitextinput — full UITextInput protocol implementation in custom views (selection display, loupe, marked text)
• txt-find-replace — find/replace UI on text views
• txt-pasteboard — copy/paste customization, including custom edit-menu items that copy non-default formats
• txt-writing-tools — Writing Tools and how it integrates with the edit menu
• UIEditMenuInteraction
• UITextItem
• UITextInteraction