I want to design a UIButton in a specific way and cannot find in the Interface Builder all the relevant tools required for the design.
The tools I cannot find:
Text Alignment: I want to have the text aligned to the middle (it is available for UILabel, but I don't see this option in UIButton).
Button Edges: I want to use Type >> Custom so I can have control over the button color and opacity; still, I wish to have rounded edges (like the Type >> Rounded Rect has). How can I do that?
Edges Style/Design: If/Once I have these rounded edges for the button, I wish to set the width of the edges and its color (to have this nice frame). Is it possible?
If I can do it via Interface Builder, I prefer that; I don't mind setting these attributes via code as well...
Any assistance would be very much appreciated.
For that level of customizability you'll have to make a custom button and either draw it in code or use images. Things like corner radius and edge style are not customizable in interface builder.
Related
Wondering if the above can be created using UISlider? If not, what other ways can this be accomplished?
You can set components of a UISlider, such as the currentThumbImage ( see: "Appearance of Sliders"1).
However, it is almost certainly easier to just re-implement a slider for this much customization. Simply use background UIImageView with the scale image, and then add a separate UIView (or UIImageView) for the arrow. Finally, attach a UIPanGestureRecognizer to the arrow view to allow a user translate the view vertically.
You can change a lot in the appearance of a UISlider like setting the thumb to a red arrow. You can also replace the background image with the inches ruler and with different rulers for the different device types and display sizes.
The one thing that I don't see is that you turn the slider to work vertically. I know them only working left to right.
If I'm right, your only chance is to have a ruler as background image and a view that contains the arrow and a label with the actual value. That whole view can be pawned and tapped using Gesture Listener.
I am a beginner and just started learning iOS. I want to achieve this layout, using Swift:
When you drag a text field into your project, there's a number of styling options available in the Utilities bar in Xcode, that can help you style the shape, colour and other properties of your field. To achieve the look you want, you could use something like this:
Place a UITextField and a UIButton on your story board. Then select both items, and then go to Editor, Embed In, stack view. If they are one on top of the other, change the stack view orientation to vertical then they will be side by side as shown above. Next change the attributes of both in the attributes inspector to taste. You can change the attributes manually in code using textField.defaultTextAttrubutes = [ "the look you are going for"], but you should need to in order to recreate your example.
you can add a view container to your view, inside that container .. add a button and a textfield then add positioning constraints on them.
as you can see in the picture .. it illustrates the idea .. you can style it the way you want e.g. change the height of your textfield .. change its border style etc. the same with your button.
example
In order to add a border, you have to enter some specific information in the attributes inspector. Here is a snapshot of what you can use to create border radius if you want one, vary the thickness of the border, and select a color for the border. screenshot of attributes inspectorYou can vary the values to make the radius greater and the width thicker also, plus you can change the color. Pay very close attention to the spelling otherwise this won't work.
I currently face a problem when using UIButton. I have the background image designed by others like this:
background image
and I need to place the title for the button right after the white vertical bar in the background image. I tried to set left edge for the content but since I used auto layout, the frame will be different with different screen size(3.5", 4.7"...).
Is there a way to put text in the position related to background I want with auto layout.
Thanks
I personally would split the left side of the background image from the right side. This way you can have two UIButtons next to each other with horizontal space constraint of 0. The right side of the button will have to be placed inside a UIImageView so you can set the image as a property of the view rather that the button's background. You don't have to do this of course, but I prefer this solution as it is easier to manage across different screen sizes.
Here is a visual representation of what I explained above:
Separated Views for Single UIButton
You will then need to route the touch events of both buttons to run the same method or function, just so that both the right side and the left are clickable.
Note: I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind for the highlighting of the button, but this will have to be tested and adapted to get the desired effect.
How can I draw a little triangle above the selected item in a UISegmentedControl? Does anyone know an open-source than extends it?
(if not - pointers of how to do it)
Design should look like (this is in the bottom of the screen)
I don't believe there's a native way to do that. You can either find a library that allows for it, but you can do it yourself fairly easily, which I recommend.
I can think of a few out of the box ways to approach it, here at the two I think worth mentioning off the bat:
1) Use UISegmentedControl with images. Make the segmented controller have a height that includes the triangle, and have an image for selected and normal states that shows what you want. The Normal states would have a rectangle of transparency on top, as wide as the entire image and as tall as the triangle. The selected image would include the triangle. Both images should end up the same width and height.
2) Subclass UISegmentedControl and do some custom drawing in drawRect:. You could draw the triangle outside (above) the bounds of the segmented controller, make sure to set the segmented controller's clipToBounds property to NO, as well as its layer's masksToBounds property.
If you'd like more help, or some other suggestions, just ask.
This is for a UIButton specifically. I understand that the alignment options pertain to the label inside the UIButton, but what does the 'content' settings do? They seem like they correspond to the setEnabled:, setSelected:, setHighlighted: methods of the UIButton class, however clicking Highlighted or Selected doesn't seem to change the button's behavior outside of interface builder. Also, what would be the use-case for having a button always show highlighted or selected?
There are several practical uses for these methods. As #MHUMobileInc. pointed out, it can be used for a game like Minesweeper. It can also allow you to use the button as a sort of switch, where the selected button has "ON" and the non-selected version has "OFF". It seems that Apple wants developers to shy away from this, and to use either UISwitches or a custom view. However, Apple does contradict itself in some of its apps.
These settings set the initial state of the UIButton- so if in your viewDidLoad you set it not selected nor highlighted, this Interface Builder setting will not be seen on screen when you run the app. If you want to ensure that these settings are kept, it might be easier to say so in code (viewDidLoad) rather than Interface Builder.
It may be easier not to use these settings too much. They can lead to confusion for you (the developer), other programmers who are working on the project (if any) and the user. Use the built-in UIKit views when it works and create your own subclasses when there is nothing that fits best for the situation.
The upper portion addresses the alignment of the content within the view. For example, if you have a large UIButton with an image that's smaller than the bounds of the button, by default the image will be centered vertically and horizontally inside the button. However, if you want the image to hug the left/right/top/bottom, you can set the alignment using those options.
All of these controls pertain to the UIControl, not UIButton, as indicated by the header in that screenshot.
Alignment refers to contentHorizontalAlignment and contentVerticalAlignment. Many controls return a fixed width or fixed height, or both, from sizeThatFits:. For example a UISwitch object has a fixed size, whereas a UISlider object has a fixed height. If you assign a frame to a control object that does not correspond to these fixed dimensions, these properties determine where in that frame the control interface should be drawn. Instances of UIButton do fill their frame, so the UIButton class interprets these properties differently to apply to the button's content, but the properties themselves are not specific to the UIButton class.
Similarly the selected, highlighted and enabled properties are defined by UIControl not UIButton, not all subclasses of UIControl utilise them.