multiple shadowOffset on UIViewController - ios

Question

I've looked on the web but my results mainly consist of "how to do a shadowOffset." I need to apply "Shadow,Border, and CornerRadius" to multiple objects in my views. I just wanted to see if theres a more effienct way? Or if theres a way to keep it more organized. heres some of my code. Keep in mind I have multiple views like this, so the amount of space this code takes gets pretty annoying.
topView.layer.cornerRadius = 3;
topView.layer.masksToBounds = YES;
topView.layer.borderColor= [UIColor lightGrayColor].CGColor;
topView.layer.borderWidth = 0.5f;
bottomView.layer.cornerRadius = 3;
bottomView.layer.masksToBounds = YES;
bottomView.layer.borderColor= [UIColor lightGrayColor].CGColor;
bottomView.layer.borderWidth = 0.5f;
eventName.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
eventName.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
eventName.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
eventName.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
eventName.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
addressLabel.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
addressLabel.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
addressLabel.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
addressLabel.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
addressLabel.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
dateLabel.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
dateLabel.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
dateLabel.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
dateLabel.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
dateLabel.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
typeLabel.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
typeLabel.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
typeLabel.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
typeLabel.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
typeLabel.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
eventCaption.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
eventCaption.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
eventCaption.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
eventCaption.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
eventCaption.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);

Answer 1

If most of your shadows are identical, you could choose to loop over an array (or a set, since you don't really care about the order of the items it is applied to) of your views to apply the same shadow ?
That is, I see 2 kind of shadows in the code you pasted here, the lightGray and the black.
You could do something like :
NSArray * blackShadowItems = #[eventName, addressLabel, dateLabel];
for (UIView * view in blackShadowItems) {
view.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
view.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
view.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
view.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
view.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
}
or declare another function :
- (void)setBlackShadow:(UIView *)view {
view.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
view.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
view.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5;
view.layer.shadowRadius = 2;
//(right,down) also (-right,-down)
view.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.8f);
}
You can combine both of these solutions.
Finally, note that if these views are declared in a .xib file, you could declare an IBOutletCollection to regroup the views according to the type of shadow you want to set on it.
This is some quite similar to declaring your NSArray or NSSet yourself.