SwiftUI: Can't align image to the top of ZStack - ios

I can't figure out how to align Image view on top of ZStack, by default views in SwiftUI are placed at the center of their parent, and we then use stacks to align them, I have the following piece of code:
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Image("bgImage")
Text("Hello, World!")
}
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
.background(Color.red) //this is for debugging purposes, to show the area of the ZStack
}
}
How can I position the image to the top ?

To tell the ZStack to align things a particular way within it, configure it with the alignment parameter:
ZStack(alignment: .top) {
Color.clear
Image(...)
Text("Hello, World!")
}
(Color.clear expands to fill all available space, so this forces your ZStack to be as large as the enclosing view without needing to add a .frame().)
That will align everything at the top of course, which might not be what you want. You could fix that by making a nesting your ZStacks to align as you want them to:
ZStack{
ZStack(alignment: .top) {
Color.clear
Image(...) // This will be at the top
}
Text("Hello, World!") // This will be centered
}
That said, I'd probably use a .background for this example.
ZStack {
Color.clear
Text("Hello, World!")
}
.background(Image(...), alignment: .top)
And if you only have one view, you can get rid of the ZStack and use a frame instead:
Text("Hello, World!")
.frame(maxHeight: .infinity)
.background(Image(uiImage:#imageLiteral(resourceName: "image.jpg")),
alignment: .top)
Keep in mind that in this case the image will draw outside its frame. In many cases that's fine (and it's completely legal), but it can matter sometimes (for example, if you put this inside a stack). You can add .border(Color.green) to the end to see how that works.
This example really gets to the heart of SwiftUI layout, so it's worth understanding what's going on. This isn't a workaround or a trick, so you should get to the place where this feels very normal.
The top-level content view (the one that contains the ZStack) offers its entire space to the ZStack. A ZStack is always exactly the size that contains its contents, so first the ZStack needs to layout its children. It lays them out according to its alignment, and then sizes itself exactly to fit around them. So with top-alignment (but without Color.clear), the Image is at the top of the ZStack. The ZStack is just exactly the same size as the Image.
The top-level content view then places the ZStack in its center.
The way the ZStack lays out its children is similar to how the content view did. It offers all the space it was offered, and then the child-views decide their sizes. Views always decide their own sizes. The Image and Text are fixed-sized views, so they are just the size of their contents. But Color is a flexible-sized view. It accepts the entire space that the ZStack offered (which is the same space that the top-level content view offered) and returns that as its size. Since a ZStack must exactly contain its children, the ZStack is now the size of the top-level content view, and things behave as you expect, aligning at the top of the screen.
Let's compare to using .frame() as you originally did:
ZStack {
Image("bgImage")
Text("Hello, World!")
}
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
.background(Color.red) //this is for debugging purposes, to show the area of the ZStack
First, I want to focus on your comment, because it's not correct. This is not the area of the ZStack. The ZStack is exactly the size of its contents (the Image and the Text). You put the background on the frame view, and the frame view is larger.
A key confusion people have is that they think .frame(...) changes the size of the View it's attached to. That's not correct at all. As before, a ZStack is always the size of its contents. .frame() creates a completely new view of the requested size. It then positions the wrapped view inside itself according to the frame's alignment. So in this example it works like this:
Top-level - Background - Frame - ZStack - { Image Text }
The top-level view offers all its space to the Background. Backgrounds are the size of what they contain, so it offers all of that space to the Frame. The Frame is flexible in both directions (due to the max fields), and so it ignores its child's size and chooses to be the size it was offered.
The Frame then offers all that space to the ZStack. The ZStack lays out its children, and returns its size as exactly the size that contains them.
The Frame then places the ZStack according to the Frame's alignment (.center, since that's the default). If you'd set the Frame's alignment to .top, then the ZStack would have been placed at the top of the frame (but the text would be centered in the ZStack not in the Frame).
It then reports to the Background that it is as large as the top-level view (since its flexible).
The Background then claims that same size to the top-level content view.
And finally, the top-level content view places the Background in its center.

You could always just put the things you want to be at the top in a VStack and use a Spacer.
ZStack(){
Image(...)
Spacer()
}
The complete code should look something like this:
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ZStack(){
Text("Hello, World!")
VStack {
Image(...)
Spacer()
}
}
}
}
You could do this with HStacks as well. Important to notice that if the image has no limits to its size, it will always take up as much space as possible. That would remove the purpose of the Spacer. Hope this helps :-)

So one thing working against you is the infinity maxHeight modifier, assuming that you do not want some space between the image and the bottom of the view.
.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
You may just need to tell your ZStack to ignore safe area insets.
struct ContactsView: View {
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Image("bgImage")
Text("Hello, World!")
}.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity).background(Color.red).edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
}
}
If you need space between the bottom and the image, wrap the ZStack in a VStack and throw a Spacer in the bottom of the VStack.
struct ContactsView: View {
var body: some View {
VStack {
ZStack {
Image(systemName: "bgImage")
Text("Hello, World!")
}.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: 300).background(Color.red)
Spacer()
}.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
}
}

ZStack {
Image("background")
.resizable()
.scaledToFill()
.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
}
Add .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)

Related

How to ignore parent view's padding SwiftUI

I have a VStack with multiple child views (the one with blue background). The VStack has horizontal padding. I want to have this padding set for each child, but sometimes I have exception where I want that child to reach edges of the display completely (Two grey lines above "Checkout" button). Is there any way how to allow this to happen? I don't wanna set padding for every single child separately.
You can apply a negative padding on the view that you applied on the VStack, that means if you applied a padding of 16 points to the VStack like this for example .padding(16) for all directions which is the default. then you can apply a .padding(.horizontal,-16) to the lines and they will stretch to the end of the screen
here is a sample code and a screenshot for the behavior you want.
struct VStackPadding: View {
var body: some View {
VStack{
RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 4)
.frame(width: .infinity,height: 3)
.padding(.horizontal, -16)
.padding(.bottom,16)
RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 4)
.frame(width: .infinity,height: 3)
}.padding(16)
}
}

Ignore Safe Area in Xcode with SwiftUI

With the following code, the safe area is ignored even though no (.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)) is set.
Why? How I can reset it or is it a bug?
enter image description here
struct SafeAreaBootcamp: View {
var body: some View {
Text("Hello, World!")
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
.background(Color.red)
}
}
struct SafeAreaBootcamp_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
SafeAreaBootcamp()
}
}
background ignores safe area insets by default – so although the frame or your text view is inset from the top and bottom of an iPhone view, the background will automatically extend into it.
You could elect to use a ZStack to manually layer your view on top of a view that would act as its background. That view wouldn't automatically extend into the safe area, so it'd get you the effect you want.
However, it's possible (and probably preferable) to stick with the background modifier, and tell it not to ignore safe edges. From the documentation:
By default, the background ignores safe area insets on all edges, but you can provide a specific set of edges to ignore, or an empty set to respect safe area insets on all edges:
Rectangle()
.background(
.regularMaterial,
ignoresSafeAreaEdges: []) // Ignore no safe area insets.
Note that this constructor only works with a subset of backgrounds – colors, materials, etc. – that conform to the ShapeStyle protocol. That's explained in the doc page but it's worth repeating.
I would use a zStack, one of the issues with your current code is using the frame(maxHeight : .infinity) you're forcing the view to extend vertically for the entire screen. Below code is a cleaner way to write what you're after.
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Color.red
Text("Hello, World!")
}
}
}

How to align VStack to top even if larger than height?

I'm trying to create a widget that only allow VStack instead of List. I'm struggling with aligning the VStack to the top and letting the bottom truncate. It centres vertically and truncates both sides:
How can I make the VStack to the top so it starts from 1 and let it truncate from the bottom?
I found how to do this:
GeometryReader { geometry in
VStack {...}
.frame(height: geometry.size.height, alignment: .top)
}

SwiftUI - Vertical Centering Content inside Scrollview

i'm trying to code a simple login page on my app. I started using SwiftUI on my newlly updated Mac OS Catalina. The Apple documentation is still lacking a lot.
I need to center a VStack vertically on a Scrollview ocupying the whole page with a "limit" on it's width of 400.
Something like this:
ScrollView(.vertical) {
VStack {
Text("Hello World")
}
.frame(maxWidth: 400, alignment: .center)
}
It was easy with UIScrollView, just needed to set the ContentView to fill height and width and then centering a Vertical StackLayout inside the Content View but now with SwiftUI i just wonder..
The goal is something like this (Credit to the author)
If someone is wondering why i want everything inside a scrollview, it's beacause my form is quite big and i expect the user to use both landscape and portrait view so i really need the content to be scrollable, bear in mind also that in a Ipad the form doens't fill the whole screen that's why i want it centered vertically.
You can vertically center content in a scroll view by using GeometryReader to get the parent view's dimensions and setting the scroll view's content's minHeight to the parent's height.
When the content is too big to fit vertically it'll just scroll like normal.
For example:
var body: some View {
GeometryReader { geometry in // Get the geometry
ScrollView(.vertical) {
VStack {
Text("Form goes here")
.frame(maxWidth: 400) // Set your max width
}
.padding()
.background(Color.yellow)
.frame(width: geometry.size.width) // Make the scroll view full-width
.frame(minHeight: geometry.size.height) // Set the content’s min height to the parent
}
}
}
I've build a more generic view based on #Alex answer
/// Custom vertical scroll view with centered content vertically
///
struct VScrollView<Content>: View where Content: View {
#ViewBuilder let content: Content
var body: some View {
GeometryReader { geometry in
ScrollView(.vertical) {
content
.frame(width: geometry.size.width)
.frame(minHeight: geometry.size.height)
}
}
}
}
You can use it anywhere in your app like this
var body: some View {
VScrollView {
VStack {
Text("YOUR TEXT HERE")
}
}
}

How do I pin a view to the edges of a screen?

How do I pin a view (in this case, a label/text) to an edge of a screen with SwiftUI? With Storyboards I would just use AutoLayout but that isn't available with SwiftUI.
You can do something like this
VStack {
HStack {
Text("Label")
Spacer()
}
Spacer()
}
Spacer in VStack will make sure HStack is at the top, Spacer in HStack will make sure Text is all they way to the left. You can also solve this with alignments.
You can wrap your main content in a special container called GeometryReader. Its default size is the same as its parent so if it is the root view it will pin the contents to the screen edges like AutoLayout.
GeometryReader { in geometry
YourContentView().frame(width: geometry.size.width, height: geometry.size.height)
}
In case anyone is here to find a way to pin a view x points from the top, you can do this:
VStack {
Spacer()
.frame(height: 40)
Text("Space me")
Spacer()
}
You'll need both spacers. This can be a bit counter-intuitive if you're coming from Auto Layout but it's actually quite convenient. The spacer at the bottom of your VStack will "push" your VStack views from the default (i.e. centered) y position toward the top until it meets resistance – by default the top edge of the safe area. You can then push the resting point down by x points with the top spacer, giving a similar effect as Auto Layout's top constraint.
Use this modifier on your view
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity,
minHeight: 0, maxHeight: .infinity)
SwiftUI uses minimum needed space for any view, to increase it you may use different approaches depending on the situation.
Also it's possible to use relativeSize() modifier, but I didn't get yet when it works

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