Is there a way to do half of a newline? - objective-c

Question

I'm wondering, is there a way to do half of a new line character (\n) in an NSString in objective C, i.e. so that it only skips about half the space? Or anyway else to accomplish this in an NSString?

Answer 1

Like Wain said, setting NSParagraphStyle on an NSAttributedString might be what you are looking for. UILabel supports NSAttributedStrings in iOS 6, but anything before that you will have to use a third party component. TTTAttributedLabel is very good and well documented.
NSMutableAttributedString* attrStr = [NSMutableAttributedString attributedStringWithString:#"Hello World!"];
NSMutableParagraphStyle *style = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
[style setLineSpacing:24]; //Just a random value, you'll have to play with it till you are hhappy
[attrStr addAttribute:NSParagraphStyleAttributeName
value:style
range:NSMakeRange(0, [myString length])];
label.attributedText = attrStr;
if you end up using TTTAttributedLabel you would use label.text = attrStr; or one of the helper methods (Taken from TTTAttributedLabel docs:
[label setText:text afterInheritingLabelAttributesAndConfiguringWithBlock:^ NSMutableAttributedString *(NSMutableAttributedString *mutableAttributedString) {
NSRange boldRange = [[mutableAttributedString string] rangeOfString:#"ipsum dolar" options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
NSRange strikeRange = [[mutableAttributedString string] rangeOfString:#"sit amet" options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
// Core Text APIs use C functions without a direct bridge to UIFont. See Apple's "Core Text Programming Guide" to learn how to configure string attributes.
UIFont *boldSystemFont = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:14];
CTFontRef font = CTFontCreateWithName((__bridge CFStringRef)boldSystemFont.fontName, boldSystemFont.pointSize, NULL);
if (font) {
[mutableAttributedString addAttribute:(NSString *)kCTFontAttributeName value:(id)font range:boldRange];
[mutableAttributedString addAttribute:kTTTStrikeOutAttributeName value:[NSNumber numberWithBool:YES] range:strikeRange];
CFRelease(font);
}
return mutableAttributedString;
}];
Also, TTTAttributedLabel has a lineHeightMultiple (between 0.0 and 1.0) property that you might be able to fiddle with to get the desired effect. That way, you'll still be able to use an NSString and not mess with the sometimes ugly NSAttributedString.

Answer 2

While this answer arguably won't help the asker, some historical perspective on the half-linefeed concept may be of general use.
The concept of half-reverse and half-forward linefeeds was useful on teletypes to combine, say, the o and " characters to approximate the German "o umlaut", ö. The Unix col command recognized ESC-8 (0x1b 0x38) and ESC-9 (0x1b 0x39) as these sequences, respectively, and this standard was adopted by asciitiff.
The printer control language PCL recognized the forward half-linefeed.
An OKI PCL4.5 printer, the OL600e, accepted ESC= (0x1b 0x3d) as half-linefeed, and PCL5 extended that to ESC&= (0x1b 0x26 0x3d).
I'm having difficulty locating older examples.