Make href hypertext links in JSON strings work in iOS app - json

Question

I'm using JSON in my app to call elements from a database.
One of these elements is a text block with href links.
The JSON looks like :
"textBlock":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.website.com\/" target=\"_blank\">Link<\/a>
In my app I call label with :
self.TextLabel.text = self.item[#"textBlock"];
[selfTextLabel sizeToFit];
Result in my app shows :
Link
Would it be possible to write / strip this link properly ?
I came across this solution to strip the html, which works fine, but my links don't work, I would like to know if I can keep my links working.

Answer 1

OK, so after some more searching and trying, I finally got what I needed.
I first tried to put my string in UITextView, selectable with links detection. Would have been great if I had written directly my URLs in the text.
But again, the strings I receive from JSON look like :
Link
I looked at Fancy UILabels and NSDataDetector, but it seemed like the labels were working but still showing http:// which looked not good for me.
So I figured best way was to put this string in a UIWebView, and call it like (I replaced TextLabel in the question with TextView).
[self.TextView loadHTMLString:self.item[#"textBlock"] baseURL:nil];
I finally had some last issue, as the links were opening in the UIWebView instead of Safari.
So I added self.TextView.delegate = self; in viewDidLoad.
And
-(BOOL) webView:(UIWebView *)TextView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)inRequest navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)inType {
if ( inType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked ) {
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[inRequest URL]];
return NO;
}
return YES;
}
.h file must also call UIWebViewDelegate.
And if you think UIWebView default font is ugly in this case, like I did, you can do :
NSString *nicerTextBlock = self.item[#"textBlock"];
[self.textView loadHTMLString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"<style type='text/css'>body { font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12 } ></style>%#", nicerTextBlock] baseURL:nil];
Hope this can spare some time for other people.