Markdown Link in AttributedString Not Focusable with Full Keyboard Access in SwiftUI

Question

palusa OP

Created Apr ’25

Replies 1

Boosts 2

Participants 4

I’m encountering an accessibility issue in SwiftUI related to keyboard navigation.

🐞 Problem

When using an AttributedString to display Markdown content in a SwiftUI view (such as a Text view), any links included in the Markdown are not keyboard focusable when Full Keyboard Access is enabled. This means users can’t navigate to or activate the links using the Tab key or other keyboard-only methods.

💻 Platform

iOS version: 16+
Framework: SwiftUI
Device: All tested iPhones and iPads

🧪 Steps to Reproduce

Enable Full Keyboard Access in iOS settings.
Run the included SwiftUI Playground or equivalent app using the code below.
Try to navigate to the link using Tab or keyboard arrow keys.
Observe that the Markdown link is not reachable via keyboard focus.

🧩 Expected Behavior

The Markdown link should be reachable via keyboard focus.
It should be possible to activate the link using Space or Return.

📚 Example code

struct ContentView: View {
    let attributedString: AttributedString

    init() {
        self.attributedString = try! AttributedString(
            markdown: "This is a [test link](https://apple.com) inside an attributed string."
        )
    }

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("Issue: Attributed Markdown Link Is Not Focusable with full keyboard access")
                .font(.headline)
                .padding()

            Text(attributedString) // The link is not focusable with
                .padding()
                .border(Color.gray, width: 1)

            Text("Expected: The link should be focusable with Full Keyboard Access.")
                .foregroundColor(.red)
                .padding()
        }
    }
}

Boost

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Apr ’25

That could be a bug, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could open a bug report, include the code snippet and post the FB number here once you do. Bug Reporting: How and Why? has tips on creating your bug report.

Using a UITextView and wrap that in a UIViewRepresentable does and you might want to consider that. For example

struct CustomTextView: UIViewRepresentable {
    let attributedText: NSAttributedString
    
    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UITextView {
        let textView = UITextView()
        textView.isEditable = false
        textView.isSelectable = true
        textView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
        textView.dataDetectorTypes = .link
        
        textView.attributedText = attributedText
        return textView
    }
    
    func updateUIView(_ uiView: UITextView, context: Context) {
    }
}

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