How to center the subviews of UIScrollView - ios

Question

I'm a beginner in creating a custom view. I'm trying to create a custom UIView with a scrollview and buttons that will look like this:
I'm adding a view(view with label of page number) inside of scrollView depending on the the number of pages. Is that how it should be?
Currently it looks like this:
My question is how can I center the subviews of scrollview? and next is what's wrong with this code? Why is that I can only see 1 label inside the view? and the other doesn't show up. How can I scroll to the selected page if the page number is not visible already in the scrollview?
Here's my code:
func addPageNumberViewWithCount(count: Int) {
var pageNumberViewX: CGFloat! = 0
let pageNumberViewDistance: CGFloat! = 10
for i in 1...count {
let pageNumberView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(pageNumberViewX, 0, 30, 30))
pageNumberView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
pageNumberView.layer.cornerRadius = pageNumberView.frame.height / 2
pageNumberView.layer.masksToBounds = true
pageNumberView.clipsToBounds = true
// add number label
let label = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(pageNumberViewX, 0, 30, 30))
label.center = pageNumberView.center
label.text = "\(i)"
label.textAlignment = .Center
pageNumberView.addSubview(label)
// update x for next view
pageNumberViewX = pageNumberView.frame.origin.x + pageNumberView.frame.width + pageNumberViewDistance
// add view inside scrollview
scrollView.addSubview(pageNumberView)
if i == count {
scrollView.contentSize = CGSizeMake(pageNumberViewX + pageNumberView.frame.width, 30)
}
}
}

Answer 1

Part of my answer will go to providing a solution to your question,and another part of my answer will go toward strongly suggesting that this not be the method you use to complete your desired tasks.
At this point, AutoLayout and Interface Builder have come a long way. Where they used to be difficult to use because of their inconsistency and unpredictability, they are now highly predictable and consistent as long as you understand the tools and how to use them.
Apple's suggested method for completing this task (which I mostly stand behind) is creating a .xib file (nib) to lay out the base components of the design, and to load the nib into the view or view controller whenever that design should be used. My question for you: have you tried this, or have you determined for some reason that this would be an unsatisfactory solution to your problem? AutoLayout exists to solve these problems not just in allowing you to achieve your desired solution in this one situation but to achieve it in other situations as well, with varying screen sizes and device types.
Now, if you were to simply ignore all of that and continue on your path, there would be a few good ways to handle your problem. One suggested solution I have:
1) Wrap your pageNumberView in another view. Constrain that view to the size of the scrollView. Doing this gives the scrollView content with which to base its scrollable content size, and gives the inner pageNumberView something to compare itself to.
2) Center the pageNumberView horizontally in its container (the new view that we just created).
Doing this, the page numbers should now center themselves in the container until they reach a size where they exceed the width of the scrollView. At that point, they will then continue to expand, making the area horizontally scrollable.
I can provide code examples of how you would do this, but frankly I would much prefer if you scrapped the idea of doing things this way and instead opted for the AutoLayout method at least, and perhaps even the Interface Builder method. I started out with iOS the same way you did, trying to do everything in code. It really isn't the best way to do things, at least with regard to iOS.
Edit: I've provided an example of how this would look in Interface Builder using UINib. I've populated the view with an example of 5 pages to show what it is like. I will see if I can make a GIF or something similar to show what each of the subviews look like.
For the OP, my suggestion would be this: Use this for reference, and go learn the constraints system. It is extremely unlikely that you will find success with iOS if you do not learn and utilize the constraints system. Coding in X values to a UIView's frame is only going to create a product with poor, inconsistent performance across devices, and will take much, much longer than it would to take the time to learn constraints.

Answer 2

Perhaps you should have a UICollectionView with a cell for each of these buttons. That's a better way of doing this, and you can lay it out again when the screen rotates and it changes width.
Those cells will layout offset to the left. You can solve that this way:
let pageNumberViewTotalWidth = 30 * count + (pageNumberViewDistance * count - 1)
self.collectionView.contentInset.left = (self.collectionView.frame.size.width - pageNumberViewTotalWidth) / 2
The labels aren't showing up because you're setting their frame's x to be the same as the page number view's x. It's frame should be relative to it's superview, in this case pageNumberView.

Answer 3

First Question of yours "how can I center the subviews of scrollview?"
Solution: lets suppose you have in total 50 pages and you want to show 5 pages at a time in the scrollview.
Then make 10 subviews of equal widths where each subview width will be equal to visible portion of the collection view that is
self.view.size.width - 2*(width of toggle button)
Then in each container view add 5 of your pageNumberView placed at equal distance
lets pageNumberViewWidth = container.width/5 - 2*margin
now pageNumberView frame will be (margin,0,pageNumberViewWidth,height)
In this way in each container view your pageNumberViews will be placed equally and it will look as if you have centred them.
Second Question "Why is that I can only see 1 label inside the view?"
Answer : Its because you are setting label frame incorrectly
let label = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(pageNumberViewX, 0, 30, 30))
Here label is the subview of pageNumberView So you have to set its frame according to its parent's view which is pageNumberView, so change it to
let label = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 30, 30))
First time it was right because pageNumberViewX is 0 for first iteration after that it become some positive value which makes its frame shifted to right but its parent's width is small so its not visible to you.
Third Question : "How can I scroll to the selected page if the page number is not visible already in the scrollview?"
For this you need to find the frame of your selected page:
you can do that by using the offset that you used to create pageNumberView.
(width of each pageNumberView)*pageNumber = starting point of the required pageNumberView.
let frame : CGRect = CGRectMake(calculated offset above, 0,30, 30)
//where you want to scroll
self.scrollView.scrollRectToVisible(frame, animated:true)
I hope this will help you in solving your problem
Edit for first problem
func addPageNumberViewWithCount(count: Int) {
var containerViewX: CGFloat! = 0
let pageNumberViewDistance: CGFloat! = 10
let pageNumberViewPerSubview = 5
var numberOfSubview = count/pageNumberViewPerSubview
if(count % pageNumberViewPerSubview > 0){
numberOfSubview = numberOfSubview + 1
}
var pagesLeft = count
for i in 1...numberOfSubview {
var pageNumberViewX: CGFloat! = 0
let containerView : UIView = UIView(frame:CGRectMake(containerViewX,0,scrollView.frame.size.width,scrollView.frame.size.height))
if(pagesLeft < pageNumberViewPerSubview){
for k in 1...pagesLeft{
}
}
else{
for j in 1...pageNumberViewPerSubview{
let pageNumberView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(pageNumberViewX, 0, 30, 30))
pageNumberView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
pageNumberView.layer.cornerRadius = pageNumberView.frame.height / 2
pageNumberView.layer.masksToBounds = true
pageNumberView.clipsToBounds = true
// add number label
let label = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 30, 30))
label.text = "\(i)"
label.textAlignment = .Center
pageNumberView.addSubview(label)
// update x for next view
pageNumberViewX = pageNumberView.frame.origin.x + pageNumberView.frame.width + pageNumberViewDistance
containerView.addSubview(pageNumberView)
}
containerViewX = containerViewX + scrollView.frame.size.width
// add view inside scrollview
scrollView.addSubview(containerView)
pagesLeft = pagesLeft - pageNumberViewPerSubview
}
if i == count {
scrollView.contentSize = CGSizeMake(numberOfSubview*scrollView.frame.size.width, 30)
}
}
}