ulrrect.md

layout	title	subtitle
page	ULRRect	Light-weight classes for building UIViews programmatically in Objective-C and Swift

This is the main documentation page for UltraLightRect. You can get the source code here:

ULRRect Github Project

Why does ULRRect exist?

Building UIView frames programmatically is challenging. The options are to hard-code fixed sizes, which does not scale depending on device size. Alternatives include setting the size as a ratio of the width or height of the screen: self.view.frame.size.width / 2 or self.view.frame.size.width * 0.2. The latter method is problematic for a couple reasons. First, it is verbose, which makes it harder to write. And second, it is hard to read and get a picture in your head of how the view will look on screen. UltraLightRect abstracts away the verbose code required for setting UIView frames programmatically and allows you to pass percentages (i.e. 28%) to build the view frame. The sizes scale depending on the size of the iPhone or iPad.

UltraLightRect provides classes and helper functions to easily build UIView frames programmatically. UIView frames (CGRect) are built as percentages of screen width, which allows basic code to be adaptive depending on screen size (i.e. iPhone vs iPad).

To get started simply clone the ULRRect project to your local file system and copy the helper classes into your XCode project. There are helper classes for both Objective-C and Swift. Note that the Objective-C classes can be used in a Swift project and vice versa, although the most straight-forward way is to use the Obj-C class in an Obj-C project. The same goes for the Swift helper class.

Usage:

First import the necessary header file into the class in which you would like to use the helper:

Objective-C

#import ULRRectHelper.h

Swift

//Importing is not necessary.

---

Create an instance of the helper class:

Objective-C

ULRRectHelper *helper = [[ULRRectHelper alloc] init];

Swift

let helper = ULRRectSwiftHelper()

---

To create a basic CGRect to use for a UIView frame (or UIView subclass):

Objective-C

CGRect exampleFrame = [helper quickFrameWithXPoint:20.0 YPoint:15.0 Width:60.0 Height:10.0];

Swift

let exampleFrame = helper.quickFrameWithXPoint(20.0, YPoint: 15.0, Width: 60.0, Height: 10.0)

---

Create a UIView and use the previously designed frame:

Objective-C

UIView *testView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:exampleFrame];

Swift

let testView = UIView.init(frame: exampleFrame)

The testView will now have a width of 60% of the screen width and 10% of the screen height. The UIView will be positioned 20% left of the left screen edge and 15% from the top edge of the screen.

---

Create a square frame:

Objective-C

CGRect squareFrame = [helper squareFrameWithXPoint:20.0 YPoint:10.0 sideLengthAsPercentOfWidth:50.0];

All squareFrame sides will be 50% of the device width.

---

Determine the user's device:

Objective-C

BOOL phone = [helper isPhone];

Swift

let phone = helper.isPhone()

phone will return true if the user's device is an iPhone, and false if the device is an iPad

---

Create a UILabel with an adaptive font:

Objective-C

CGRect labelFrame = [helper quickFrameWithXPoint:20.0 YPoint:15.0 Width:60.0 Height:10.0];


UILabel *exampleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:labelFrame];


exampleLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:[helper adaptiveFontSized:32]];

Swift

let labelFrame = helper.quickFrameWithXPoint(20.0, YPoint: 15.0, Width: 60.0, Height: 10.0)


let exampleLabel = UILabel.init(frame: labelFrame)


exampleLabel.font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(self.adaptiveFontSized(32))

Creates a UILabel with either the entered size or scaled up 1.8x if the device is an iPad.