我喜欢@nerdist的解决方案。在此基础上，我创建了UITextView的扩展:

import Foundation
import UIKit

extension UITextView
{
  private func add(_ placeholder: UILabel) {
    for view in self.subviews {
        if let lbl = view as? UILabel  {
            if lbl.text == placeholder.text {
                lbl.removeFromSuperview()
            }
        }
    }
    self.addSubview(placeholder)
  }

  func addPlaceholder(_ placeholder: UILabel?) {
    if let ph = placeholder {
      ph.numberOfLines = 0  // support for multiple lines
      ph.font = UIFont.italicSystemFont(ofSize: (self.font?.pointSize)!)
      ph.sizeToFit()
      self.add(ph)
      ph.frame.origin = CGPoint(x: 5, y: (self.font?.pointSize)! / 2)
      ph.textColor = UIColor(white: 0, alpha: 0.3)
      updateVisibility(ph)
    }
  }

  func updateVisibility(_ placeHolder: UILabel?) {
    if let ph = placeHolder {
      ph.isHidden = !self.text.isEmpty
    }
  }
}

例如，在ViewController类中，我是这样使用它的:

class MyViewController: UIViewController, UITextViewDelegate {
  private var notePlaceholder: UILabel!
  @IBOutlet weak var txtNote: UITextView!
  ...
  // UIViewController
  override func viewDidLoad() {
    notePlaceholder = UILabel()
    notePlaceholder.text = "title\nsubtitle\nmore..."
    txtNote.addPlaceholder(notePlaceholder)
    ...
  }

  // UITextViewDelegate
  func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
    txtNote.updateVisbility(notePlaceholder)
    ...
  }

UITextview的占位符!

更新:

如果你在代码中改变textview的文本，记得调用updateVisibitly方法来隐藏占位符:

txtNote.text = "something in code"
txtNote.updateVisibility(self.notePlaceholder) // hide placeholder if text is not empty.

为了防止占位符被添加多次，在扩展中添加了一个私有add()函数。

基于这里已经给出的一些很好的建议，我能够将以下轻量级的、与接口生成器兼容的UITextView子类组合在一起，它是:

包括可配置的占位符文本，样式就像UITextField一样。 不需要任何额外的子视图或约束。 不需要来自ViewController的任何委托或其他行为。 不需要任何通知。 保持占位符文本与查看字段文本属性的任何外部类完全分离。

任何改进建议都是受欢迎的，特别是如果有任何方法通过编程来获取iOS的占位符颜色，而不是硬编码它。

斯威夫特v5:

import UIKit
@IBDesignable class TextViewWithPlaceholder: UITextView {
    
    override var text: String! { // Ensures that the placeholder text is never returned as the field's text
        get {
            if showingPlaceholder {
                return "" // When showing the placeholder, there's no real text to return
            } else { return super.text }
        }
        set { super.text = newValue }
    }
    @IBInspectable var placeholderText: String = ""
    @IBInspectable var placeholderTextColor: UIColor = UIColor(red: 0.78, green: 0.78, blue: 0.80, alpha: 1.0) // Standard iOS placeholder color (#C7C7CD). See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31057746/whats-the-default-color-for-placeholder-text-in-uitextfield
    private var showingPlaceholder: Bool = true // Keeps track of whether the field is currently showing a placeholder
    
    override func didMoveToWindow() {
        super.didMoveToWindow()
        if text.isEmpty {
            showPlaceholderText() // Load up the placeholder text when first appearing, but not if coming back to a view where text was already entered
        }
    }
    
    override func becomeFirstResponder() -> Bool {
        // If the current text is the placeholder, remove it
        if showingPlaceholder {
            text = nil
            textColor = nil // Put the text back to the default, unmodified color
            showingPlaceholder = false
        }
        return super.becomeFirstResponder()
    }
    
    override func resignFirstResponder() -> Bool {
        // If there's no text, put the placeholder back
        if text.isEmpty {
            showPlaceholderText()
        }
        return super.resignFirstResponder()
    }
    
    private func showPlaceholderText() {
        showingPlaceholder = true
        textColor = placeholderTextColor
        text = placeholderText
    }
}

Swift 4更新

UITextView本身没有占位符属性，所以你必须用UITextViewDelegate方法来创建和操作一个。我建议使用下面的解决方案#1或#2，这取决于所需的行为。

注意:对于任何一种解决方案，都需要将UITextViewDelegate添加到类中，并设置textView.delegate = self来使用文本视图的委托方法。

解决方案#1 -如果你想让占位符在用户选择文本视图时立即消失:

首先将UITextView设置为包含占位符文本，并将其设置为浅灰色，以模拟UITextField的占位符文本的外观。要么在viewDidLoad中这样做，要么在文本视图创建时这样做。

textView.text = "Placeholder"
textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

然后，当用户开始编辑文本视图时，如果文本视图包含一个占位符(即，如果其文本颜色是浅灰色)，则清除占位符文本，并将文本颜色设置为黑色，以便容纳用户的输入。

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
        textView.text = nil
        textView.textColor = UIColor.black
    }
}

然后，当用户完成编辑文本视图并将其作为第一响应器时，如果文本视图为空，则通过重新添加占位符文本并将其颜色设置为浅灰色来重置其占位符。

func textViewDidEndEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if textView.text.isEmpty {
        textView.text = "Placeholder"
        textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
    }
}

解决方案#2 -如果你想要占位符显示文本视图是空的，即使文本视图被选中:

首先在viewDidLoad中设置占位符:

textView.text = "Placeholder"
textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

textView.becomeFirstResponder()

textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)

(注意:由于OP希望在视图加载时立即选择文本视图，所以我将文本视图选择合并到上面的代码中。如果这不是你想要的行为，你不希望在视图加载时选择文本视图，从上面的代码块中删除最后两行。)

然后使用shouldChangeTextInRange UITextViewDelegate方法，如下所示:

func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {

    // Combine the textView text and the replacement text to
    // create the updated text string
    let currentText:String = textView.text
    let updatedText = (currentText as NSString).replacingCharacters(in: range, with: text)

    // If updated text view will be empty, add the placeholder
    // and set the cursor to the beginning of the text view
    if updatedText.isEmpty {

        textView.text = "Placeholder"
        textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

        textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)
    }

    // Else if the text view's placeholder is showing and the
    // length of the replacement string is greater than 0, set 
    // the text color to black then set its text to the
    // replacement string
     else if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray && !text.isEmpty {
        textView.textColor = UIColor.black
        textView.text = text
    }

    // For every other case, the text should change with the usual
    // behavior...
    else {
        return true
    }

    // ...otherwise return false since the updates have already
    // been made
    return false
}

也实现textViewDidChangeSelection，以防止用户改变光标的位置，而占位符是可见的。(注意:textViewDidChangeSelection在视图加载之前被调用，所以如果窗口是可见的，只检查文本视图的颜色):

func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if self.view.window != nil {
        if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
            textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)
        }
    }
}

我通过使用两个不同的文本视图来做到这一点:

一个在后台用作占位符。 一个在前台(具有透明背景)，用户实际输入。

其思想是，一旦用户开始在前景视图中输入内容，后台的占位符就会消失(如果用户删除了所有内容，则会重新出现)。因此，它的行为完全类似于单行文本字段的占位符。

这是我用的代码。注意，descriptionField是用户键入的字段，descriptionPlaceholder是后台的字段。

func textViewDidChange(descriptionField: UITextView) {
    if descriptionField.text.isEmpty == false {
        descriptionPlaceholder.text = ""
    } else {
        descriptionPlaceholder.text = descriptionPlaceholderText
    }
}

Swift -我写了一个继承了UITextView的类，并添加了一个UILabel作为子视图作为占位符。

  import UIKit
  @IBDesignable
  class HintedTextView: UITextView {

      @IBInspectable var hintText: String = "hintText" {
          didSet{
              hintLabel.text = hintText
          }
      }

      private lazy var hintLabel: UILabel = {
          let label = UILabel()
          label.font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(16)
          label.textColor = UIColor.lightGrayColor()
          label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
          return label
      }()


      override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?) {
          super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer)
          setupView()
      }

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

      override func prepareForInterfaceBuilder() {
         super.prepareForInterfaceBuilder()
         setupView()
      }

      private func setupView() {

        translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
        delegate = self
        font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(16)

        addSubview(hintLabel)

        NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([

           hintLabel.leftAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(leftAnchor, constant: 4),
           hintLabel.rightAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(rightAnchor, constant: 8),
           hintLabel.topAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(topAnchor, constant: 4),
           hintLabel.heightAnchor.constraintEqualToConstant(30)
         ])
        }

      override func layoutSubviews() {
        super.layoutSubviews()
        setupView()
     }

}

浮动的占位符

将占位符标签放置在文本视图之上，通过跟踪文本视图字符计数的变化来设置其字体、颜色和管理占位符可见性，这是简单、安全且可靠的。

斯威夫特5:

class NotesViewController : UIViewController {

    @IBOutlet var textView : UITextView!
    var placeholderLabel : UILabel!
        
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
    
        textView.delegate = self
        placeholderLabel = UILabel()
        placeholderLabel.text = "Enter some text..."
        placeholderLabel.font = .italicSystemFont(ofSize: (textView.font?.pointSize)!)
        placeholderLabel.sizeToFit()
        textView.addSubview(placeholderLabel)
        placeholderLabel.frame.origin = CGPoint(x: 5, y: (textView.font?.pointSize)! / 2)
        placeholderLabel.textColor = .tertiaryLabel
        placeholderLabel.isHidden = !textView.text.isEmpty
    }
}

extension NotesViewController : UITextViewDelegate {
    func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
        placeholderLabel.isHidden = !textView.text.isEmpty
    }
}