UITextView: Disable selection, allow links

if your minimum deployment target is iOS 11.2 or newer

You can disable text selection by subclassing UITextView and forbidding the gestures that can select something.

The below solution is:

• compatible with isEditable
• compatible with isScrollEnabled
• compatible with links

/// Class to allow links but no selection.
/// Basically, it disables unwanted UIGestureRecognizer from UITextView.
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/49443814/1033581
class UnselectableTappableTextView: UITextView {

    // required to prevent blue background selection from any situation
    override var selectedTextRange: UITextRange? {
        get { return nil }
        set {}
    }

    override func gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(_ gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
        if gestureRecognizer is UIPanGestureRecognizer {
            // required for compatibility with isScrollEnabled
            return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(gestureRecognizer)
        }
        if let tapGestureRecognizer = gestureRecognizer as? UITapGestureRecognizer,
            tapGestureRecognizer.numberOfTapsRequired == 1 {
            // required for compatibility with links
            return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(gestureRecognizer)
        }
        // allowing smallDelayRecognizer for links
        // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46143868/xcode-9-uitextview-links-no-longer-clickable
        if let longPressGestureRecognizer = gestureRecognizer as? UILongPressGestureRecognizer,
            // comparison value is used to distinguish between 0.12 (smallDelayRecognizer) and 0.5 (textSelectionForce and textLoupe)
            longPressGestureRecognizer.minimumPressDuration < 0.325 {
            return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(gestureRecognizer)
        }
        // preventing selection from loupe/magnifier (_UITextSelectionForceGesture), multi tap, tap and a half, etc.
        gestureRecognizer.isEnabled = false
        return false
    }
}

if your minimum deployment target is iOS 11.1 or older

Native UITextView links gesture recognizers are broken on iOS 11.0-11.1 and require a small delay long press instead of a tap: Xcode 9 UITextView links no longer clickable

You can properly support links with your own gesture recognizer and you can disable text selection by subclassing UITextView and forbidding the gestures that can select something or tap something.

The below solution will disallow selection and is:

• compatible with isScrollEnabled
• compatible with links
• workaround limitations of iOS 11.0 and iOS 11.1, but loses the UI effect when tapping on text attachments

/// Class to support links and to disallow selection.
/// It disables most UIGestureRecognizer from UITextView and adds a UITapGestureRecognizer.
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/49443814/1033581
class UnselectableTappableTextView: UITextView {

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)

        // Native UITextView links gesture recognizers are broken on iOS 11.0-11.1:
        // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46143868/xcode-9-uitextview-links-no-longer-clickable
        // So we add our own UITapGestureRecognizer.
        linkGestureRecognizer = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(textTapped))
        linkGestureRecognizer.numberOfTapsRequired = 1
        addGestureRecognizer(linkGestureRecognizer)
        linkGestureRecognizer.isEnabled = true
    }

    var linkGestureRecognizer: UITapGestureRecognizer!

    // required to prevent blue background selection from any situation
    override var selectedTextRange: UITextRange? {
        get { return nil }
        set {}
    }

    override func addGestureRecognizer(_ gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) {
        // Prevents drag and drop gestures,
        // but also prevents a crash with links on iOS 11.0 and 11.1.
        // https://stackoverflow.com/a/49535011/1033581
        gestureRecognizer.isEnabled = false
        super.addGestureRecognizer(gestureRecognizer)
    }

    override func gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(_ gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
        if gestureRecognizer == linkGestureRecognizer {
            // Supporting links correctly.
            return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(gestureRecognizer)
        }
        if gestureRecognizer is UIPanGestureRecognizer {
            // Compatibility support with isScrollEnabled.
            return super.gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(gestureRecognizer)
        }
        // Preventing selection gestures and disabling broken links support.
        gestureRecognizer.isEnabled = false
        return false
    }

    @objc func textTapped(recognizer: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
        guard recognizer == linkGestureRecognizer else {
            return
        }
        var location = recognizer.location(in: self)
        location.x -= textContainerInset.left
        location.y -= textContainerInset.top
        let characterIndex = layoutManager.characterIndex(for: location, in: textContainer, fractionOfDistanceBetweenInsertionPoints: nil)
        let characterRange = NSRange(location: characterIndex, length: 1)

        if let attachment = attributedText?.attribute(.attachment, at: index, effectiveRange: nil) as? NSTextAttachment {
            if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
                _ = delegate?.textView?(self, shouldInteractWith: attachment, in: characterRange, interaction: .invokeDefaultAction)
            } else {
                _ = delegate?.textView?(self, shouldInteractWith: attachment, in: characterRange)
            }
        }
        if let url = attributedText?.attribute(.link, at: index, effectiveRange: nil) as? URL {
            if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
                _ = delegate?.textView?(self, shouldInteractWith: url, in: characterRange, interaction: .invokeDefaultAction)
            } else {
                _ = delegate?.textView?(self, shouldInteractWith: url, in: characterRange)
            }
        }
    }
}

Try it please:

func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView) {
    textView.selectedTextRange = nil
}

I find the concept of fiddling with the internal gesture recognizers a little scary, so tried to find another solution. I've discovered that we can override point(inside:with:) to effectively allow a "tap-through" when the user isn't touching down on text with a link inside it:

// Inside a UITextView subclass:
override func point(inside point: CGPoint, with event: UIEvent?) -> Bool {

    guard let pos = closestPosition(to: point) else { return false }

    guard let range = tokenizer.rangeEnclosingPosition(pos, with: .character, inDirection: .layout(.left)) else { return false }

    let startIndex = offset(from: beginningOfDocument, to: range.start)

    return attributedText.attribute(.link, at: startIndex, effectiveRange: nil) != nil
}   

This also means that if you have a UITextView with a link inside a UITableViewCell, tableView(didSelectRowAt:) still gets called when tapping the non-linked portion of the text :)