UIImageView and autolayout - uiview

Question

I have a view that is set up nicely using autolayout. The view contains a series of labels stacked from top to bottom. I am allowing the intrinsic size of these labels to determine the size of the view.
The final step is to add a background from an image. I started by trying the colorWithPatternImage method on UIColor but this isn't quite what I am looking for. I do not want to tile the image, and I can not guarantee it will always be larger than the intrinsic size of the view.
Similarly, adding a uiImageView to the view itself doesn't quite work. The view will expand to accommodate the image when I want to keep the intrinsic size based on the labels.
I guess what I am looking for is the following.
1) The background should have no effect on the size of the view.
2) The image should be scaled to fill the view but in it's original aspect ration (so cropping edges if necessary).
Any ideas appreciated.

Answer 1

In my case, I needed it for a UIImageView inside a dynamically-sized view in a UITableViewCell, but the image refused to shrink below its instristic size and instead worked as a minimum-size constraint for the superview. The only way I could get it ignore the intristic size is by lowering the priority at which it is enforced, right after creating the cell:
[imageView setContentCompressionResistancePriority:UILayoutPriorityDefaultLow
forAxis:UILayoutConstraintAxisHorizontal];
[imageView setContentCompressionResistancePriority:UILayoutPriorityDefaultLow
forAxis:UILayoutConstraintAxisVertical];
After this, all my constraints magically started working. In the OP's case, setting UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFill is also required, as per Mundi's answer.

Answer 2

In Interface Builder, add a UIImageView as the first subview to the view. Make sure its size always matches the view.
Then, in Interface Builder or code, set the contentMode:
backgroundImageView.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFill;

Answer 3

Here's how I would approach this. Hopefully it helps. :)
CGRect contentFrame = CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.frame.size.width, 0); // This will be the frame used to create the background image view.
UIEdgeInsets contentInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(20, 20, 20, 20); // The margins by which the labels will be inset from the edge of their parent view.
CGFloat labelHeight = 21;
CGFloat verticalGap = 8; // The vertical space between labels
CGFloat y = contentInsets.top;
int numberOfLabels = 10;
for (int i = 0; i < numberOfLabels; i++) {
CGRect frame = CGRectMake(contentInsets.left, y, self.view.frame.size.width - (contentInsets.left + contentInsets.right), labelHeight);
UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame: frame] autorelease];
// customize the label here
[self.view addSubview: label];
contentFrame = CGRectUnion(contentFrame, label.frame);
y += labelHeight + verticalGap;
}
contentFrame.size.height += contentInsets.bottom;
UIImageView *backgroundImageView = [[[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame: contentFrame] autorelease];
[backgroundImageView setClipsToBounds: YES];
[backgroundImageView setContentMode: UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFill];
[backgroundImageView setImage: [UIImage imageNamed: #"background_image.png"]];
[self.view insertSubview: backgroundImageView atIndex: 0];