I'm trying to determine the distance between UI elements in my app, to check that the layout matches that specified by designers. I'm using the 'Debug UI Hierarchy' option, and I do see the representation of the phone's UI in Xcode. However, the only way I can see to determine the relative positioning of two elements is to look at the Size inspector in the right sidebar, and do a manual calculation on their provided measurements. Is there a better way to do this? Can I select one element and then select another to compare it with?
I now its been a while since you asked your question but I've faced the same problem and I could figure out how to measure NSConstraints between views in runtime.
First, you have to click the debug view hierarchy icon on the debug area as shown on this picture:
After pressing the button a snapshot of the Views hierarchy will be shown on the Xcode screen as follows:
You can see all the elements (UIViews) that are actually being displayed (or not, they can be in the background) on the screen of the device
After this, you can press on the show constraint icon to show the constrains that are being applied to every view on the screen, you'll have a screen pretty similar to the interface builder constraint layout:
If you select on a particular constraint (the one you actually care about), i.e in this screen I want to know the distance between the top and the ImageView that is being represented by the big square. So selecting on that particular constraint and clicking on the inspector Object inspector icon inside the Utilities panel you can actually see the constraint description.
This way you can see the constraints measures and the relation with the views and frame bounds.
You can press "Option key" and the UI element on StoryBoard this will show distances between this element and any other
I hope this helps
Related
I am trying to match my graphic designer's interface design to be exact in every IOS device. My problem is the images on the buttons are never the right ratio and I am having trouble making sure the buttons autosize correctly.
This is a picture of the artist's intent
This is my implementation of the buttons using different views
How do I resolve these autosizing issues to correctly solve this problem? I have watched plenty of tutorials on resizing images, but I haven't seen any that cover images that aren't symmetrical.
If you simply wish to resize those "buttons" (which I assume are actually UIImageViews) depending upon the device, create a relational constraint between the button image and the parent views (in your case, I suppose these should be the black and white UIViews). You can accomplish this by tapping both of the views at the same time and then "Create width/ height constraint".
Then, select the constraint and tap the "Show Utilities Area" (the most top right corner button). You'll have there in the Attributes a Multiplication property. The default is 1. Keep in mind that if the first element of the relational constraint is the parent view, then the multiplication factor has to be lower than 1 and viceversa.
EG: I suppose your button should always have a 1/6 part of the screen. Then, you should write in the Multiplication property of your constraint either 1/6 or 0.17.
I used to be able to do this:
UIButton *bigBottomBtn=[[UIButton alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, self.view.frame.size.height-60, self.view.frame.size.width, 60)];
I also used to be able to just drag a button onto a storyboard and add a constraint that would hold it to the bottom of the parent.
What is going on with Xcode, Autolayout and Apple for that matter....is my Xcode not working properly? Have I missed a major memo? is Apple just going downhill fast?
Your button-creating code used to work (and still does) if self.view's frame was correct at the time you created the button. Note that the view doesn't necessarily come out of the xib or storyboard with the correct frame; the xib/storyboard contains the view at some design size which might not match the current device. This wasn't as much of a problem when all iPhones had 3.5 inch screens, but became a pretty common problem with the advent of the iPhone 5's 4 inch screen.
The view isn't guaranteed to have its correct frame until its superview's layoutSubviews returns, so if for example you're creating bigBottomBtn in viewDidLoad, that's too early. Many questions on stackoverflow cover this problem. You either need to set the autoresizingMask of the button, or implement layoutSubviews or viewDidLayoutSubviews to update the button's frame, or turn off translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints and install constraints. Note too that your view can change size if you support rotation, slide over or split view multitasking, or if your view can be the detail view of a UISplitViewController, so it's a bad idea to try to guess the correct frame of the button based on the device's screen size at the moment the button is created.
Note that storyboards now by default use a design size of 600x600, which isn't the size of any device. This is probably because if Apple chose some device's size (say, the iPhone 5's 320x568) as the default, and you happened to use a device of that size as your primary (or only) test device, you could easily forget to think about what your app will look like at other sizes. However, you can explicitly set the design size to some device's size if you want:
I usually use “iPhone 3.5-inch” if I don't specifically need something bigger, because it lets me get the most scenes on the screen simultaneously (and produces the smallest screen shots for stackoverflow).
As for “I also used to be able to just drag a button onto a storyboard and add a constraint that would hold it to the bottom of the parent”, I have good news: you still can. Example:
However, you do need to be careful if you have filled your root view with a table view as appears to be the case in your screen shots. You need to drag the button to the document outline in that case, because if you drop it on the table view, Xcode will assume you want it to be the table view header:
Trying to pin a table view header to the bottom of the screen would be folly.
As for the Editor > Align menu, I have found that the items can be mysteriously inactive, which is frustrating.
Note, though, that only the “Horizontally in Container” and “Vertically in Container” will work (when they work at all) with a single view selected. To use the other items in the menu, you need to have at least two views selected, because the other items align the selected views with each other by setting their frames:
If you only have one view selected, Xcode doesn't know what other view you might want to align it to.
Those menu items are perhaps useful in the springs'n'struts model, but they don't add constraints, and under autolayout you probably want constraints to enforce the alignment at run time.
As far as I know, those menu items have never added constraints, but I'm not going to reinstall Xcode 6 to verify that, because there's a convenient popover that will add constraints corresponding to all of those menu items:
In xcode you always need to add buttons according to its visibility. As you said you need to show button on top of tableView and it should be aligned to bottom. For that You just need to arrange the order of items. as shown in the image below.Provide the layout for the button.
I'm trying to make an app. I prepared the ui with sketch app.And I export the ui , it is like this:
I add some text field and button to View
But when I use Auto Layout and constraints buttons and text fields are going to another place.I need the use them like in the picture.What should I do ? Do you have any suggestion ?
Thank You
Notice the red arrow at the top right of your second screen shot. That is telling you that your constraints are faulty. Until you fix them, you will not see your interface widgets in the desired locations.
In general, as long as you see a red or yellow arrow in that spot, you need to work on your layout some more. Do not attempt to run a project when Interface Builder shows you that red or yellow arrow; your results will be disappointing, to say the least.
I'm working on a screen that has a UITableView below the screen(thus invisible) initially, but will pop up when user click on a button. I know it's not supposed to be seen on the screen, but just for the sake of design, is there a way to make it visible when I'm working on main.storyboard?
Please see the picture attached below. It's really hard to work on the UITableView when it's beneath the toolbar. How can I force xcode to display them so it's much easier to work on?
You can't, but you have 3 workarounds:
Move it into view (Xcode will complain that it's not in the right position, but it doesn't matter)
On the bottom left on your storyboard, you can open up the view hierarchy, you can find your element there for creating constraints, linking it with your code and everything else you'd want to do.
Increase the visible size of the viewcontroller on your storyboard, trough selecting your viewcontroller on the storyboard, changing Simulated Size to freeform and increasing the values (will not affect size when running).
The easiest way to deal with this is to:
open storyboard
select the viewcontroller you want to edit
open the Size Inspector
Switch from Fixed to Freeform
Type in a larger height (like 1000)
Simplest thing is to manually do what your button does in the app.
In the view hierarchy on the left, select your table view and move it down to the bottom. This will bring it to the front in interface builder.
When you are done, move it back.
I do this all the time and you get used to doing it. Just watch out for accidentally moving it inside another view when you drag it down or up.
Built a new project from scratch in Swift in Xcode 6 (Beta 1) and have seen some strange behaviour with Storyboards and the output that I am viewing.
I have built a simple interface (as shown below) - with properties of View Controller included.
When I run this in the simulator I would expect 'Hello, World' to be central in the user interface - however it seems that this 'Square' is simply being fit into the iPhone screen and thus the wrong view is being shown (see below).
My question is: has anyone else seen this behaviour and how did they fix it?
Thanks!
Do the following steps to resolve the issue
In Storyboard, select any view, then go to the File inspector. Uncheck the "Use Size Classes", you will ask to keep size class data for: iPhone/iPad. And then Click the "Disable Size Classes" button.
Doing this will make the storyboard's view size with selected device.
While Asif Bilal's answer is a simpler solution that doesn't involve Size Classes (which were introduced in iOS 8.) it is strongly recommended you to get used to size classes as they are the future, and you will eventually jump in anyway at some point."
You probably haven't added the layout constraints.
Select your label, tap the layout constraints button on the bottom:
On that menu add width and height (it should NOT be the same as mine) by checking their checkbox and click add constraints. Then Control-drag your label to your main view, and then when you de-click, you should have the options to center horizontally and vertically in container. Add both, and you should be set up.
If you are using Xcode 6 and designing for iOS 8, none of these solutions are correct. To get your iPhone-only views to be sized correctly, don't turn off size classes, don't turn off inferred metrics, and don't set constraints (yet). Instead, use the size class control, which is an easy to miss text button at the bottom of Interface Builder that initially reads "wAny hAny".
Click the button, and choose Compact Width, Regular Height. This resize your views and cover all iPhone portrait orientations.
Apple's docs here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/recipes/xcode_help-IB_adaptive_sizes/chapters/SelectingASizeClass.html or search on "Selecting a Size Class in Interface Builder"
In Storyboard, select your ViewController and go to Atribute Inspector. At the very top, under Simulated Metrics you have Size and Orientation properties which are set to Inferred. Change them to desired values.
In order for an application to display properly on another screen size, you also have to setup constraints, as described by Can Poyrazoğlu in the first post.
I had this issue in xcode 6 and there is a way to resolve the resize conflicts. If you select your view, at the bottom you will see an icon that looks like |-Δ-|. If you click on it, you're project will resize for different devices.
Go to Attributes Inspector(right top corner) In the Simulated Metrics, which has Size, Orientation, Status Bar, Top Bar, Bottom Bar properties. For SIZE, change Inferred --> Freeform.
On your storyboard page, go to File Inspector and uncheck 'Use Size Classes'. This should shrink your view controller to regular IPhone size you were familiar with. Note that using 'size classes' will let you design your project across many devices. Once you uncheck this the Xcode will give you a warning dialogue as follows. This should be self-explainatory.
"Disabling size classes will limit this document to storing data for a single device family. The data for the size class best representing the targeted device will be retained, and all other data will be removed. In addition, segues will be converted to their non-adaptive equivalents."
For anyone using XCode 7, it's very easy to design for a specific device size (instead of the default square-ish canvas).
In Interface Builder, select your ViewController or Scene from the left menu. Then under Show the Attributes Inspector, go to the Simulated Metrics, and pick the desired Size from the dropdown menu.
You shall probably use the "Resolve Auto Layout Issues" (bottom right - triangle icon in the storyboard view) to add/reset to suggested constraints (Xcode 6.0.1).