UITextView ignoring AttributedText in Retina

Question

I've been working on a bug now on and off (because it's driving me crazy) for a couple of weeks now, and I just can't seem to get to the bottom of it so I'm reaching out in hopes someone can shed some light on this for me...

I've got a basic UITextView setup in a XIB file and have set the font using an included font, but not the default (in this case "Avenir") and then I'm using a couple of lines of code to change the line height by using the Attributed Text property. I should also mention I'm using ARC.

The output looks perfect on an iPad mini (or the normal iPad on the simulator) but on an iPad retina (or retina simulator) the output get's knocked back to the system default font - Helvetica, although it maintains the line spacing.

I've tried creating the UITextView programatically rather than in the XIB and still no luck. Here is the code I'm using to set the Attributed Text:

NSString *string = theTextView.text;

NSMutableParagraphStyle *paragraphStyle = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
paragraphStyle.minimumLineHeight = 48.f;

NSMutableAttributedString *aStr = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:string];
[aStr addAttribute:NSParagraphStyleAttributeName value:paragraphStyle range:NSMakeRange(0,[string length])];

theTextView.attributedText = aStr;

From what I can tell, on a retina device, for some reason the UITextView seems to be holding a double set of attributed strings. When I print

NSLog(@"Font Attributes: %@", theTextView.attributedText);

This is the output I get:

Non Retina

Font Attributes: Lorem ipsum dolor sit er elit lamet, consectetaur cillium adipisicing pecu, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda.
{
    NSColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSFont = "<UICFFont: 0x714c930> font-family: \"Avenir-Roman\"; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 24px";
    NSKern = 0;
    NSParagraphStyle = "Alignment 4, LineSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacingBefore 0, HeadIndent 0, TailIndent 0, FirstLineHeadIndent 0, LineHeight 48/0, LineHeightMultiple 0, LineBreakMode 0, Tabs (\n), DefaultTabInterval 36, Blocks (null), Lists (null), BaseWritingDirection 0, HyphenationFactor 0, TighteningFactor 0, HeaderLevel 0";
    NSStrokeColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSStrokeWidth = 0;
}

Retina

Font Attributes: Lorem ipsum dolor sit er elit lamet, consectetaur cillium adipisicing pecu, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda.
{
    NSColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSFont = "<UICFFont: 0x71ed950> font-family: \"Helvetica\"; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 12px";
    NSKern = 0;
    NSParagraphStyle = "Alignment 4, LineSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacingBefore 0, HeadIndent 0, TailIndent 0, FirstLineHeadIndent 0, LineHeight 48/0, LineHeightMultiple 0, LineBreakMode 0, Tabs (\n), DefaultTabInterval 36, Blocks (null), Lists (null), BaseWritingDirection 0, HyphenationFactor 0, TighteningFactor 0, HeaderLevel 0";
    NSStrokeColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSStrokeWidth = 0;
}
{
    NSColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSFont = "<UICFFont: 0x71e67d0> font-family: \"Avenir-Roman\"; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 24px";
    NSKern = 0;
    NSParagraphStyle = "Alignment 4, LineSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacing 0, ParagraphSpacingBefore 0, HeadIndent 0, TailIndent 0, FirstLineHeadIndent 0, LineHeight 48/0, LineHeightMultiple 0, LineBreakMode 0, Tabs (\n), DefaultTabInterval 36, Blocks (null), Lists (null), BaseWritingDirection 0, HyphenationFactor 0, TighteningFactor 0, HeaderLevel 0";
    NSStrokeColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 0 0 0 1";
    NSStrokeWidth = 0;
}

I've created a simple example project of the problem on GitHub as well -

https://github.com/mpatteson/UITextViewBug

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I got the same problem. For non-retina devices and simulators it worked but when I switched to a retina device or simulator the font was standard helvetica with the same outputs as you had. For me it worked when I specified the font directly in the code (in the Interface Builder it was correctly set). So add a line like this:

UIFont *font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Avenir-Roman" size:24.0];
[aStr addAttribute:NSFontAttributeName value:font range:NSMakeRange(0,[string length])];

Answer 2

Can you try adjusting your minimum line height for the scale?

NSMutableParagraphStyle *paragraphStyle = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
paragraphStyle.minimumLineHeight = 48.0 * [UIScreen mainScreen] scale];