How to resize superview to fit all subviews with autolayout

Question

My understanding of autolayout is that it takes the size of superview and base on constrains and intrinsic sizes it calculates positions of subviews   Is there a way to reverse this process  I want to resize superview on the base of constrains and intrinsic sizes  What is the simplest way of achieving this   I have view designed in Xcode which I use as a header for UITableView  This view includes a label and a button  Size of the label differs depending on data  Depending on constrains the label successfully pushes the button down or if there is a constrain between the button and bottom of superview the label is compressed   I have found a few similar questions but they don   t have good and easy answers

User · Accepted Answer

The correct API to use is UIView systemLayoutSizeFittingSize   passing either UILayoutFittingCompressedSize or UILayoutFittingExpandedSize   For a normal UIView using autolayout this should just work as long as your constraints are correct   If you want to use it on a UITableViewCell  to determine row height for example  then you should call it against your cell contentView and grab the height     Further considerations exist if you have one or more UILabel s in your view that are multiline   For these it is imperitive that the preferredMaxLayoutWidth property be set correctly such that the label provides a correct intrinsicContentSize  which will be used in systemLayoutSizeFittingSize s calculation   EDIT  by request  adding example of height calculation for a table view cell  Using autolayout for table-cell height calculation isn t super efficient but it sure is convenient  especially if you have a cell that has a complex layout     As I said above  if you re using a multiline UILabel it s imperative to sync the preferredMaxLayoutWidth to the label width   I use a custom UILabel subclass to do this    implementation TSLabel  -  void  layoutSubviews        super layoutSubviews        if   self numberOfLines    0                 if   self preferredMaxLayoutWidth    self frame size width                         self preferredMaxLayoutWidth   self frame size width               self setNeedsUpdateConstraints                      -  CGSize  intrinsicContentSize       CGSize s    super intrinsicContentSize        if   self numberOfLines    0                    found out that sometimes intrinsicContentSize is 1pt too short          s height    1             return s      end   Here s a contrived UITableViewController subclass demonstrating heightForRowAtIndexPath    import  TSTableViewController h   import  TSTableViewCell h    implementation TSTableViewController  -  NSString   cellText       return   Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet  consectetur adipisicing elit  sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua        pragma mark - Table view data source  -  NSInteger  numberOfSectionsInTableView   UITableView    tableView       return 1     -  NSInteger  tableView   UITableView   tableView numberOfRowsInSection   NSInteger  section       return 1     -  CGFloat  tableView   UITableView    tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath   NSIndexPath    indexPath       static TSTableViewCell  sizingCell      static dispatch once t onceToken      dispatch once  amp onceToken              sizingCell    TSTableViewCell   tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier    TSTableViewCell                    configure the cell     sizingCell text   self cellText          force layout      sizingCell setNeedsLayout        sizingCell layoutIfNeeded           get the fitting size     CGSize s    sizingCell contentView systemLayoutSizeFittingSize  UILayoutFittingCompressedSize       NSLog    fittingSize       NSStringFromCGSize  s          return s height     -  UITableViewCell    tableView   UITableView    tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath   NSIndexPath    indexPath       TSTableViewCell  cell    TSTableViewCell   tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier    TSTableViewCell          cell text   self cellText       return cell      end   A simple custom cell    import  TSTableViewCell h   import  TSLabel h    implementation TSTableViewCell       IBOutlet TSLabel   label     -  void  setText   NSString    text        label text   text      end   And  here s a picture of the constraints defined in the Storyboard   Note that there are no height width constraints on the label - those are inferred from the label s intrinsicContentSize

User · Answer

You can do this by creating a constraint and connecting it via interface builder  See explanation  Auto Layout Constraints in Interface Builder  raywenderlich beginning-auto-layout  AutolayoutPG Articles constraint Fundamentals   interface ViewController   UIViewController       IBOutlet NSLayoutConstraint  leadingSpaceConstraint      IBOutlet NSLayoutConstraint  topSpaceConstraint     property  weak  nonatomic  IBOutlet NSLayoutConstraint  leadingSpaceConstraint    connect this Constraint outlet with your sub views Constraint or connect super views Constraint too and set it according to your requirements like this   self leadingSpaceConstraint constant   10 0   whatever you want to assign   I hope this clarifies it

User · Answer

Eric Baker s comment tipped me off to the core idea that in order for a view to have its size be determined by the content placed within it  then the content placed within it must have an explicit relationship with the containing view in order to drive its height  or width  dynamically   Add subview  does not create this relationship as you might assume  You have to choose which subview is going to drive the height and or width of the container    most commonly whatever UI element you have placed in the lower right hand corner of your overall UI  Here s some code and inline comments to illustrate the point   Note  this may be of particular value to those working with scroll views since it s common to design around a single content view that determines its size  and communicates this to the scroll view  dynamically based on whatever you put in it  Good luck  hope this helps somebody out there          ViewController m     AutoLayoutDynamicVerticalContainerHeight      import  ViewController h    interface ViewController     property  strong  nonatomic  UIView  contentView   property  strong  nonatomic  UILabel  myLabel   property  strong  nonatomic  UILabel  myOtherLabel   end   implementation ViewController  -  void viewDidLoad          INVOKE SUPER      super viewDidLoad           INIT ALL REQUIRED UI ELEMENTS     self contentView     UIView alloc  init       self myLabel     UILabel alloc  init       self myOtherLabel     UILabel alloc  init       NSDictionary  viewsDictionary   NSDictionaryOfVariableBindings  contentView   myLabel   myOtherLabel           TURN AUTO LAYOUT ON FOR EACH ONE OF THEM     self contentView translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints   NO      self myLabel translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints   NO      self myOtherLabel translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints   NO          ESTABLISH VIEW HIERARCHY      self view addSubview self contentView      View adds content view      self contentView addSubview self myLabel      Content view adds my label  and all other UI    what s added here drives the container height  and width        self contentView addSubview self myOtherLabel           LAYOUT         Layout CONTENT VIEW  Pinned to left  top  Note  it expects to get its vertical height  and horizontal width  dynamically based on whatever is placed within          Note  if you don t want horizontal width to be driven by content  just pin left AND right to superview       self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   H    contentView   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary       Only pinned to left  no horizontal width yet      self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   V    contentView   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary       Only pinned to top  no vertical height yet         WHATEVER WE ADD NEXT NEEDS TO EXPLICITLY  PUSH OUT ON  THE CONTAINING CONTENT VIEW SO THAT OUR CONTENT DYNAMICALLY DETERMINES THE SIZE OF THE CONTAINING VIEW            To me this is what s weird    but okay once you understand            Layout MY LABEL  Anchor to upper left with default margin  width and height are dynamic based on text  font  etc  i e  UILabel has an intrinsicContentSize        self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   H  -  myLabel   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary         self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   V  -  myLabel   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary            Layout MY OTHER LABEL  Anchored by vertical space to the sibling label that comes before it         Note  this is the view that we are choosing to use to drive the height  and width  of our container            The LAST     character is KEY  it s what drives the WIDTH of contentView  red color       self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   H  -  myOtherLabel -   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary            Again  the LAST     character is KEY  it s what drives the HEIGHT of contentView  red color       self view addConstraints  NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat   V   myLabel -  myOtherLabel -   options 0 metrics 0 views viewsDictionary            COLOR VIEWS     self view backgroundColor    UIColor purpleColor       self contentView backgroundColor    UIColor redColor       self myLabel backgroundColor    UIColor orangeColor       self myOtherLabel backgroundColor    UIColor greenColor           CONFIGURE VIEWS         Configure MY LABEL     self myLabel text     HELLO WORLD nLine 2 nLine 3  yo       self myLabel numberOfLines   0     Let it flow         Configure MY OTHER LABEL     self myOtherLabel text     My OTHER label    This nis the UI element I m narbitrarily choosing nto drive the width and height nof the container  the red view        self myOtherLabel numberOfLines   0      self myOtherLabel font    UIFont systemFontOfSize 21       end

User · Answer

This can be done for a normal subview inside a larger UIView  but it doesn t work automatically for headerViews  The height of a headerView is determined by what s returned by tableView heightForHeaderInSection  so you have to calculate the height based on the height of the UILabel plus space for the UIButton and any padding you need  You need to do something like this   - CGFloat tableView  UITableView   tableView            heightForHeaderInSection  NSInteger section       NSString  s   self headeString indexPath section       CGSize size    s sizeWithFont  UIFont systemFontOfSize 17                   constrainedToSize CGSizeMake 281  CGFLOAT MAX                      lineBreakMode NSLineBreakByWordWrapping       return size height   60      Here headerString is whatever string you want to populate the UILabel  and the 281 number is the width of the UILabel  as setup in Interface Builder

[ios] How to resize superview to fit all subviews with autolayout?

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