Temporarily remove NSLayoutConstraint? - ios

I have a UITableViewCell subclass laid out using AutoLayout, and I’d like a small animation in which the image view transforms, grows a bit and shrinks back.
At present, due to the constraints, the labels on the right side of the image are moving too (as they should be).
I’d like a quick and easy means to temporarily say “leave those labels where they currently are while this animation is running”. Is that something I can do without needing to remove and re-add those constraints, which is a lot of hassle?

Starting in iOS 8 NSLayoutConstraints now have an active property that you can change myConstraint.active = NO;. This removes the constraint, while setting this value to YES will [re]add it:
Activating or deactivating the constraint calls addConstraint: and
removeConstraint: on the view that is the closest common ancestor of
the items managed by this constraint. Use this property instead of
calling addConstraint: or removeConstraint: directly.
source
Additionally, there are two new class methods activateConstraints: and deactivateConstraints: that take an array of constraints (NSArray<NSLayoutConstraint>), so that can be helpful, especially if you have an IBOutletCollection with constraints.
[NSLayoutConstraint deactivateConstraints:myConstraints];

There's no API to say "leave these views here", temporarily disabling some parts of the autolayout. There are several possible solutions:
remove your constraints during animation
arrange your constraints differently (making them to a superview of the image view, for example, or having them only depend on the center of the image view)
override layoutSubviews of a container view to stick your labels back where you want them after autolayout runs in [super layoutSubviews] (or remove the transform of your image view, run autolayout and then put it back)
subclass your image view and override frameForAlignmentRect: and alignmentRectForFrame: to get autolayout to use the untransformed frame for alignment purposes.
More details and suggestions are available in the answers here, which is a similar question of how to make transforms and autolayout play together: How do I adjust the anchor point of a CALayer, when Auto Layout is being used?

Related

How we can increase width of two button when we remove third button from view

I have view with three button with equal size. Each button take 1/3 part portion of view.
Like this image:
If I remove/hide one button then two button width should increase equally and take 1/2 portion of view. if I remove two button then one button size should be equal size of view.
My question is, how it's possible using the Autolayout.
Best option is using stackView. StackView gives lots of flexibility in adding or removing items. If you wish to use only auto layouts, you can achieve it by connect it's width constraints as IBOutlet and change the values programatically.
Best way to do that is to use UISTACKVIEW.Place a stackview and add 3 buttons.You can give proper layout constraints to the stack view as you need
click on stack view-- select attribute inspector
change distribution--fill equally
spacing--0
Then after that if you hide any button,other buttons will be automatically adjusted in width
Other Possible sol to this problem is Adding or removing constraints during runtime is a heavyweight operation that can affect performance. However, there is a simpler alternative.
For the view you wish to hide, set up a width constraint. Constrain the other views with a leading horizontal gap to that view.
To hide, update the .constant of the width constraint to 0.f. The other views will automatically move left to assume position. and for equal width pervoid multiplier to width..
You have a few options:
UIStackView which was made exactly for this.
UICollectionView similar to UIStackView in a certain way, but not really meant for this. However, it does the job nicely and it's easy to implement. Sometimes easier than UIStackView.
NSLayoutConstraint by using multiple constraints with different priority so that you can activate/deactivate them as needed and get the desired result. This approach is a bit more complex by it gives you the highest degree of control and flexibility over the views in your hierarchy.
The best way to achieve what you are looking for is, like others have already mentioned, to use a UIStackView.
When the isHidden property of a UIView inside a stack view is set to true, that stack view will hide the view and take care of the layout, so you will only need to set the correct constraints for your stack view.

Override spacing for a UIStackView

I frequently find that a UIStackView is perfect for a particular layout, except that I need some variable spacing between the arranged subviews. UIStackView uses its spacing property to arrange the views along its axis, but is there a way to override these? For example, I would love to be able to add a single manual constraint using the visual format to define the required gaps, and somehow de-prioritize those of the stack view.
I could forgo the UIStackView entirely of course, but the stack's ability to give back space between hidden subviews is pretty painful to replicate manually (adding and removing constraints based on which views are hidden, for example). I also tried wrapping individual subviews in their own stack views so that I can use the stack's layoutMargins to add a top-margin. But this then requires managing the wrapper-stack's own hidden state in addition to that of the subview it contains (surprisingly - to me - a UIStackView whose arrangedSubviews are all hidden is not automatically hidden itself, so does not yield its spacing and margins back to its own superview).
From iOS 11 it is possible to use:
stackView.setCustomSpacing(spacing: CGFloat, after: UIView)

iOS AutoLayout - when does it Run?

I have a XIB file where I specify constraints at design time.
In addition to controls with constraints, I also have controls that have no constraints in the XIB that I want to position programmatically at run time.
I do this by repositioning views manually in didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation.
When I rotate the device, my code places the controls that are manually controlled but then later it appears that auto layout messes up the placement of manual controls that have no constraints on them in the Interface builder.
Question - When exactly does Auto layout run if I rotate the device.
Auto Layout runs at the end of the run loop after setNeedsLayout is called on a view, or immediately when setNeedsLayout is followed by layoutIfNeeded. Note that there are many methods that may call setNeedsLayout in their implementation, such as addSubview:, removeFromSuperview, etc.
A couple suggestions:
Instead of updating your constraints in didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:, try doing so in updateViewConstraints.
You may also want to add placeholder constraints in Interface Builder to the views you will position programmatically. I think IB will automatically constrain views to their x/y position if a placeholder constraint is not set, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
The important thing to know is that the results of constraint calculations are applied in layoutSubviews. So if you want to set frames, you do so after calling super in layoutSubviews or in your view controller's viewDidLayoutSubviews.
Having said that, I've only experimented with this. I've not done it in production code and can't say that you won't run into issues.
I'm actually not clear on whether it's OK to set frames manually like this. The only relevant bit of information I've come across is the following from Apple's Auto Layout documentation:
You cannot set a constraint to cross the view hierarchy if the
hierarchy includes a view that sets the frames of subviews manually in
a custom implementation for the layoutSubviews method on UIView (or
the layout method on NSView).
Here, the phrase "view that sets the frames of subviews manually" implies to me that manually setting frames is OK. I'd be interested to know if anyone has a see a more explicit discussion on this.
you must not change the frame you must connect the constraint with iboulet and in the didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation you can change the constraint like this:
(void)didRotateFromInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)fromInterfaceOrientation{
if (UIInterfaceOrientationIsLandscape(fromInterfaceOrientation)) {
self.constraintTop.constant = 50;
}else{
self.constraintTop.constant = 100;
}
}

iOS autolayout-move a view located inside a tableviewcell to the center of the screen

I have a tableview with cells containing text views as well as imageviews. My project is currently using AutoLayout. My goal is to get the imageview to display in fullscreen when it is tapped. One option is to use a modal view controller, but I want to have this work sort of like the way tapping on images in the facebook app works, the app centers the image and fades the background.
Since I'm using autolayout, I cannot simply set the frame of the imageview to fill the screen. Instead, I need to use autolayout constraints. My image view has 5 constraints, a constraint setting a distance from the bottom of the cell, as well as the left an right sides, and one controlling the image height. The last is a vertical space constraint between the textview above the image view and the top of the image. While this would appear to conflict with the height and bottom constraints, for some reason interface builder forces me to have this. To avoid problems, I set this constraint's priority to be less than 1000 (the image should never overlap the textview anyways, since the tableview cell height is set so everything will fit perfectly).
To center the image, I set the distance from the left and right to be zero and remove the vertical space constraint. In order to center the image, I replace the bottom space constraint with a center y alignment constraint to the UIWindow as opposed to the tableviewcell. I want to have it be in the center of the screen, not the cell.
To get the main window I use this:
AppDelegate* myDelegate = (((AppDelegate*) [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate));
//access main window using myDelegate.window
Then, to set the constraint:
//currently sets the distance from the bottom of the cell to 14
//changing it...
[cellselected removeConstraint:cellselected.imagebottomspace];
cellselected.imagebottomspace = [NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:cellselected.viewimage attribute:NSLayoutAttributeCenterY relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual toItem:myDelegate.window attribute:NSLayoutAttributeCenterY multiplier:0 constant:0];
[cellselected addConstraint:cellselected.imagebottomspace];
However, this doesn't work. The changes in the width and height of the image view apply just fine. However, when readding the imagebottomspace constraint, I get an unsatisfiable layout--apparently the constraint conflicts with another constraint which sets the distance between the bottom and the image view to 14, the very constraint I just removed. So it seems that it isn't actually removing the constraint.
When I proceed and let the app break a constraint, the imageview moves, but to the wrong place. It isn't centering in the screen. It moves way up and off the screen.
Obviously what I'm doing isn't right. What am I doing wrong?
So I guess you want something like this:
First, you need to know that as of Xcode 4.6.3, the nib editor (“Interface Builder”) has a bug when setting up constraints in a table view cell. It should create the constraints between the subviews and the cell's content view, but instead it creates the constraints between the subviews and the cell itself. This tends to screw up layout at runtime. (This bug is fixed in Xcode 5 and later.)
The consequence of this is that you should either remove all of the constraints that were in the nib and recreate them in code, or just get rid of the nib and create the cell's entire view hierarchy in code.
Second, there's an easier way to do the image zooming. Here's the basic procedure when a cell is selected:
Convert the selected cell's image view bounds to a CGRect in the top-level view's coordinate system.
Create a new image view just for zooming and set its frame to that CGRect. Set its userInteractionEnabled to YES. Set its autoresizingMask to flexible width and height. Add a tap gesture recognizer.
Add the new image view as a subview of the top-level view.
Set the cell's image view's hidden property to YES.
In an animation block, set the new image view's frame to the top-level view's bounds.
Disable the table view's panGestureRecognizer.
When the new image view is tapped, reverse the procedure:
Convert the selected cell's image view bounds to a CGRect in the top-level view's coordinate system.
In an animation block, set the zoomed image view's frame to that CGRect.
In the animation completion block:
Remove the zoomed image view from its superview.
Set the cell's image view's hidden property to NO.
Enable the table view's panGestureRecognizer.
Since you're not moving the original image view, you don't have to mess with its constraints. Hidden views still participate in layout.
Since you're creating the new image view in code, it will have translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints set to YES by default. This means that you can just set its frame. Auto layout will automatically turn the frame into constraints.
You can find the full source code in this github repository.
I've just come across a similar issue. I think that the reason for these problems are that the views embedded in UIScrollViews exist in a different bounds system to those of the views outside it. This is effectively how scrolling works in the first place, think of it as just applying a variable offset to the views it contains. Autolayout doesn't know how to translate between these different coordinate systems so any constraints that bridge across aren't going to be applied the way you expect.
To quote from Erica Sadun's excellent book iOS Auto Layout Demystified (from the section 'Constraints, Hierarchies, and Bounds Systems'):
"Be aware of bounds systems. You should not relate a button on some
view, for example, with a text field inside a separate collection
view. If there's some sort of content view with its own bounds system
(such as collection views, scroll views, and table views), don’t hop
out of that to an entirely different bounds system in another view."

Autolayout how to get computed value from view

There is one thing that is really making me crazy about auto layout , I'm doing my tests and found that if you subclass a UIView and you put some views with their constraints is impossible to know the computed value.
Let't say that we have a TestViewClass that inherits from UIView, we've got some subviews inside. we want to use it for iPhone and iPad, so we use in two sizes, let's suppose 100x100 and 200x200 we made our constraints to make everything work. We build this view placing those subviews in some positions.
Now we need to build another subviews that contains a number of buttons as subviews (contentView) which number is given at runtime.
The algorithm will pick the size of this content view and put the correct number of buttons calculating the space between them in a way that the will be at the same distance from each other but covering the whole content view width. For example, the contentView is 200 point in width, buttons are 3 and squared with a side of 60. Together they cover 180, so we have 20 points left that should be placed as a space between the buttons->10 points.
That's pretty easy, made thousand of times before auto layout. To do that I need the width of the contentView which has some constraints to its superview that make it resize its width according to superview size, the problem is that I can't find any place inside UIView implementation where I can get the final value of the size of the contentView.
I tried view -layoutSubviews, -updateConstraints, -didMoveToSuperview, value show are alway the original one. When the new frames are calculated?
I clearly didn't get something about auto layout...
I discovered this problem trying to set table view cell height, trying to make them appear all on screen independently by the size of the table view. here is the related question other question
Finally I've get what I was missing about auto layout and it is a fundamental concept.
Autolayout doesn't work like autoresizing masks, the new frames aren't
updated instantaneously but by request.
This makes a huge difference, it seems to be in sync with the CATransaction render cycle, that makes sense, because layout calculation could be an expensive task and is useless to do until you really need it, most of the time during rendering.
Of course there are few exceptions, like this one and how can we force auto layout to make this calculation? we can do setting -setNeedsLayout method and -layoutIfNeeded. the first method marks the view as "dirty" and the second forces an immediate layout. If you set call those two methods in -didMoveToSuperview right after you get correct updated frames. Hope this helps,
Andrea
You can use view controller's viewDidLayoutSubviews, which will notify you when the views are laid out. If all of this is adding of constraints is happening in a custom UIView, you could simply write a method for your view called viewDidLayoutSubviews and have the view controller call that when the view controller receives it. At this point, the containers should have their dimensions properly configured.
But, there are a couple of approaches of even spacing a bunch of buttons without needing to bother knowing the size of the container view:
One approach I've used for even spacing controls in a container is to create what I call "spacer" views (views that are present, but just have a clearColor background, so you can't visually see them). You can then create a series of constraints using, effectively, something like:
H:|[spacer1][button1(60)][spacer2(==spacer1)][button2(60)][spacer3(==spacer1)][button3(60)][spacer4(==spacer1)]|
If your number of buttons is fixed, you can do this in a single constraintsWithVisualFormat, like above. If it's a variable number of buttons, you can iterate through them, building a VFL string for each pair of button and spacer (e.g. the first button would use VFL of
H:|[spacer][button(60)]
all the subsequent ones would create another button and another spacer and use the following VFL:
H:[previousButton][spacer(==originalSpacer)][button(60)]
and then I add one final spacer at the end:
H:[lastButton][spacer(==originalSpacer)]|
This is a little cumbersome, but as you can see, your controls are perfectly laid out, evenly spaced, and you never needed to know the dimensions of the container.
Another approach is to use the NSLayoutFormatAlignAllCenterX, attribute. This bypasses the need to create all of those spacers, but if you use a simple algorithm like I do below, the centers will be evenly distributed amongst themselves. Thus, in addition to the standard vertical constraints and the horizontal width constraint for the button, you can then control the horizontal placement of the buttons with:
[containerView addConstraint:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:button[i]
attribute:NSLayoutAttributeCenterX
relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual
toItem:containerView
attribute:NSLayoutAttributeCenterX
multiplier:2.0 * (double) (i + 0.5) / (double) n
constant:0.0]];
where i is the zero-based index of which button you're setting this horizontal constraint for, and n is the number of buttons.

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