My textView bottomAnchor does not seem to work? - ios

Question

I have a textView and I have a line, I set the line's frame without contraints and set textView frame with constraints. Simply what I want is the textView to follow the line, so I put a bottomAnchor to textView equal to the topAnchor of the line. Yet when I animate the line the textView does not follow? What am I doing wrong?
var button = UIButton()
var testLine = UIView()
let textView = UITextView()
var textViewBottomAnchorConstraint: NSLayoutConstraint?
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
testLine.backgroundColor = .black
testLine.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 335, width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: 10)
view.addSubview(testLine)
view.addSubview(textView)
textView.frame = .zero//CGRect(x: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 16), y: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 300), width: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 282), height: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 35))
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.yellow
textView.text = ""
textView.font = UIFont(name: "Arial Rounded MT Bold", size: 15)
textView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
textView.isHidden = false
textView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
// textView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: testLine.topAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true
textView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.layoutMarginsGuide.leadingAnchor, constant: 20).isActive = true
textView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.layoutMarginsGuide.trailingAnchor, constant: -20).isActive = true
textView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 40).isActive = true
textViewBottomAnchorConstraint = textView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: testLine.topAnchor, constant: 0)
textViewBottomAnchorConstraint?.isActive = true
UIView.animate(withDuration: 2, delay: 2, options: .curveEaseIn, animations: {
self.testLine.transform = CGAffineTransform.identity.translatedBy(x: 0, y: 30)
}) { (true) in
self.view.layoutIfNeeded()
}
}

Answer 1

As #Vollan correctly said animating transform property is not the best option. Here is quote from Apple documentation: "In iOS 8.0 and later, the transform property does not affect Auto Layout. Auto layout calculates a view’s alignment rectangle based on its untransformed frame." Therefore animation of transform property doesn't change layout of textView. I recommend you to animate frame property instead of transform.
However, if you switch to frame animation it doesn't fix all your problems. If you keep your animation inside viewDidLoad method you may encounter very strange behavior. The reason is that in viewDidLoad the view itself is not yet laid out properly. Starting animation inside viewDidLoad may lead to unpredicted results.
At last you need adjust your animation block. Apple recommends to apply layoutIfNeeded inside the animation block. Or at least they used to recommend it then autolayout was introduced - watch this WWDC video (starting from 30th minute) for further details.
If you apply all recommendations above your code should look like this:
var button = UIButton()
var testLine = UIView()
let textView = UITextView()
var textViewBottomAnchorConstraint: NSLayoutConstraint?
var triggeredAnimation = false
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
testLine.backgroundColor = .black
testLine.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 335, width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: 10)
view.addSubview(testLine)
view.addSubview(textView)
textView.frame = .zero//CGRect(x: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 16), y: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 300), width: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 282), height: CGFloat(integerLiteral: 35))
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.yellow
textView.text = ""
textView.font = UIFont(name: "Arial Rounded MT Bold", size: 15)
textView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
textView.isHidden = false
textView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
// textView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: testLine.topAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true
textView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.layoutMarginsGuide.leadingAnchor, constant: 20).isActive = true
textView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.layoutMarginsGuide.trailingAnchor, constant: -20).isActive = true
textView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 40).isActive = true
textViewBottomAnchorConstraint = textView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: testLine.topAnchor, constant: 0)
textViewBottomAnchorConstraint?.isActive = true
}
override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewDidAppear(animated)
// viewDidAppear may be called several times during view controller lifecycle
// triggeredAnimation ensures that animation will be called just once
if self.triggeredAnimation {
return
}
self.triggeredAnimation = true
let oldFrame = self.testLine.frame
UIView.animate(withDuration: 2, delay: 2, options: .curveEaseIn, animations: {
self.testLine.frame = CGRect(x: oldFrame.minX, y: oldFrame.minY + 30, width: oldFrame.width,
height: oldFrame.height)
self.view.layoutIfNeeded()
})
}

Answer 2

Anchor points make references to others positions, meaning. It is still referensed to y = 355 as you transform it and not actually "move" it.
What i recommend is that you don't mix using frame-based layout and anchorpoints / layout constraints.