How does one find a UIView... when there's no self.view? - ios

Question

So I've been fighting this one for a while as novice with iOS - I'm sure it's either a basic concept I'm missing, or a property I haven't run across yet that I need to reference.
Scenario: View controller creates a UIScrollView. UIView is created as a container for several UILabels (describing an event, venue and time). Method is called repeatedly to create these UILabels within the block. Creating these labels one by one works fine - simply adding each to the view - but when I move the code to a method and reuse it, abstracting such things as text size, indent, etc, I can't refer to the same parent view (because it's not a View Controller?), or search using viewWithTag (returns nothing) to find the parent.
Is this a simple fix, or is my basic structure flawed? Many thanks in advance for your time!
Header:
//
// ScheduleColumn.h
//
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#interface ScheduleColumn : UIView {
}
- (void)makeTextBlock:(int)parentViewID label:(NSString*)label textSize:(int)textSize indent:(int)indent y:(int)y width:(int)width height:(int)height;
#end
Implementation:
//
// ScheduleColumn.m
//
#import "ScheduleColumn.h"
#implementation ScheduleColumn
// makeTextBlock: type, text, textSize, indent, build_y, width, height
// type: 0 = Title, 1 = Subtitle, 2 = Times
// text: Line content
// textSize: self-explanatory
// indent: indent from left side of parent
// build_y: # of units down from top of parent view to build
// width & height: self-explanatory
- (void)makeTextBlock:(int)parentViewID label:(NSString*)label textSize:(int)textSize indent:(int)indent y:(int)y width:(int)width height:(int)height {
double unixTime;
unixTime = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970];
NSLog(#"makeTextBlock called");
NSLog(#"parentViewID: %u", parentViewID);
NSLog(#"label: %#", label);
NSLog(#"textSize: %u", textSize);
NSLog(#"indent: %u", indent);
NSLog(#"y: %u", y);
NSLog(#"width: %u", width);
NSLog(#"height: %u", height);
NSLog(#"time: %u", unixTime);
UILabel *textView = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(indent, y, width, height)];
textView.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
textView.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
textView.lineBreakMode = UILineBreakModeWordWrap;
textView.numberOfLines = 0;
textView.tag = unixTime;
textView.font = [UIFont fontWithName:#"PetitaMedium" size: textSize];
textView.text = label;
CGSize constraintTextSize;
constraintTextSize.width = width;
constraintTextSize.height = MAXFLOAT;
CGSize theTextSize = [label sizeWithFont:[UIFont fontWithName:#"PetitaMedium" size: textSize] constrainedToSize:constraintTextSize lineBreakMode:UILineBreakModeWordWrap];
CGRect newTextFrame = textView.frame;
newTextFrame.size.height = theTextSize.height;
textView.frame = newTextFrame;
UIView *parentView = (UIView *)[self.view viewWithTag:parentViewID];
[parentView addSubview:textView];
[textView release];
NSLog(#"--- break ---");
}
.. and finally, the calls from the View Controller:
int build_y;
int subtitle_indent;
build_y = 30;
subtitle_indent = 20;
UIView *blockView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake ( 0, build_y, 185, 50)];
blockView.tag = 100;
[FireworksContent addSubview:blockView];
// Add top line
UIView *lineView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, blockView.bounds.size.width, 0.5)];
lineView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[blockView addSubview:lineView];
// Add Block Text
ScheduleColumn *blockText = [ScheduleColumn alloc];
[blockText makeTextBlock:blockView.tag label:#"Venue" textSize:18 indent:subtitle_indent y:build_y width:blockView.bounds.size.width height:20];
[blockText makeTextBlock:blockView.tag label:#"ShowTitle" textSize:12 indent:subtitle_indent y:build_y width:blockView.bounds.size.width height:20];
[blockText makeTextBlock:blockView.tag label:#"Showtime" textSize:36 indent:subtitle_indent y:build_y width:blockView.bounds.size.width height:20];
[lineView release];
[blockText release];
[blockView release];
... the viewWithTag line fails because "self" doesn't have a view... changing the class to a UIViewController lets it run, but still no joy.

Answer 1

A class method that returns a new view rather than an instance method that returns void would make more sense.
+(UIView *)makeTextBlock:(int)parentViewID label:(NSString*)label textSize:(int)textSize indent:(int)indent y:(int)y width:(int)width height:(int)height
Create the view as you want, and return that view at the end of the method.
Then you can create several of these views and hold a reference to them in your view controller if you want.
UIView *blockText1 = [ScheduleColumn makeTextBlock .....];
[self.view addSubview: blockText1];