Adding subviews programmatically positions them weirdly - ios

Question

I have a view in which I want to add multiple subviews, however when I add them, they get positioned in positions where I didn't set the frame. The x coordinate is correct, but the y is quite off.
Using the Interface Builder it went quite smooth, just drag them in and send the correct frame and origin. However I don't appear to be able to set the origin; I get expression is not assignable when I try view.frame.origin = CGPointMake(x, y), and setting the x and y coordinates directly gives me the same error.
Does this happens because subviews cannot overlap programmatically without setting a special attribute (that I'm missing)?
Edit: The views are being set in the initWithStyle method of a UITableViewCell.
Edit 2: Added code within initWithStyle method.
// Initialize images
self.imageView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"image"]];
self.anImageView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"anImage"]];
self.anotherImageView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"anotherImage"]];
// Set imageview locations
self.imageView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 300, 54);
self.anImageView.frame = CGRectMake(20, 53, 16, 52);
self.anotherImageView.frame = CGRectMake(179, 43, 111, 53);

Answer 1

To avoid expression is not assignable, you have to set the entire frame at once, either using
view.frame = CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)
or
CGRect frame = self.view.frame;
frame.origin.x = newX;
self.view.frame = frame;

Answer 2

Most likely you are setting the frames in the viewDidLoad method. The problem here is that you are setting the frame before the viewControllers frame has been resized based on the constraints of the app.
Try moving your frame setting into the method viewWillAppear and see if that fixes your problem.
Edit: Because you are doing this in a cell, and not in a viewController you would do something like the following:
In initWithStyle:reuseIdentifier
- (id)initWithStyle:(UITableViewCellStyle)style reuseIdentifier:(NSString *)reuseIdentifier
{
if (self = [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier]) {
self.customView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];
}
return self;
}
Then override layoutSubviews to actually set the views frame
- (void)layoutSubviews
{
[super layoutSubviews];
self.customView.frame = CGRectMake(x, y, width, height);
}
As far as the "expression is not assignable" warning, this is because you cannot just set a views origin without setting the height and width. Use:
view.frame = CGRectMake(x, y, width, height);
If you want to keep the same width and height without having to hard code it do something like
view.frame = CGRectMake(x, y, view.frame.size.width, view.frame.size.height);