Correct way to load a Nib for a UIView subclass

Question

I am aware this question has been asked before but the answers are contradicting and I am confused  so please don t flame me   I want to have a reusable UIView subclass throughout my app  I want to describe the interface using a nib file   Now let s say it s a loading indicator view with an activity indicator in it  I would like on some event to instantiate this view and animate in to a view controller s view  I could describe the view s interface no problem programmatically  creating the elements programmatically and setting their frame inside an init method etc   How can I do this using a nib though  Maintaining the size given in interface builder without having to set a frame   I ve managed to do it like this  but I m sure it is wrong  it s just a view with a picker in it     -  id initWithDataSource  NSDictionary   dataSource           self    super init           if  self               self      NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed  NSString stringWithFormat         self class   owner self options nil  objectAtIndex 0               self pickerViewData   dataSource               self configurePickerView                     return self          But I m overwriting self  and when I instantiate it   FSASelectView  selectView     FSASelectView alloc  initWithDataSource selectViewDictionary       selectView delegate   self       selectView frame   CGRectMake 0  self view bottom   50   FSASelectView width    FSASelectView height      I have to manually set the frame rather than have it picked up from IB   EDIT  I want to create this custom view in a view controller  and have access to control the view s elements  I don t want a new view controller   Thanks  EDIT  I Don t know if this is best practice  I m sure it s not  but this is how I did it   FSASelectView  selectView      NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed  NSString stringWithFormat        FSASelectView class   owner self options nil  objectAtIndex 0       selectView delegate   self       selectView configurePickerViewWithData ds       selectView frame   CGRectMake 0  self view bottom   50  selectView width  selectView height       selectView alpha   0 9       self view addSubview selectView        UIView animateWithDuration  0 25 delay  0 options UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction  UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut animations                                selectView frame   CGRectMake 0  self view bottom - selectView height  selectView width  selectView height                               selectView alpha   1                            completion   BOOL finished                                  Correct practice still wanted  Should this have been done using a view controller and init with nib name  Should I have set the nib in some UIView initialisation method in the code  Or is what I have done ok

User · Answer

Follow the following steps

Create a class named MyView .h/.m of type UIView.
Create a xib of same name MyView.xib.
Now change the File Owner class to UIViewController from NSObject in xib. See the image below
Connect the File Owner View to your View. See the image below
Change the class of your View to MyView. Same as 3.
Place controls create IBOutlets.

Here is the code to load the View:

UIViewController *controller=[[UIViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"MyView" bundle:nil];
MyView* view=(MyView*)controller.view;
[self.view addSubview:myview];

Hope it helps.

Clarification:

UIViewController is used to load your xib and the View which the UIViewController has is actually MyView which you have assigned in the MyView xib..

Demo I have made a demo grab here

User · Answer

MyViewClass  myViewObject      NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed   MyViewClassNib  owner self options nil  objectAtIndex 0    I m using this to initialise the reusable custom views I have     Note that you can use  firstObject  at the end there  it s a little cleaner   firstObject  is a handy method for NSArray and NSMutableArray   Here s a typical example  of loading a xib to use as a table header  In your file YourClass m  -  UIView   tableView  UITableView   tableView viewForHeaderInSection  NSInteger section       return   NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed   TopArea  owner self options nil  firstObject      Normally  in the TopArea xib  you would click on File Owner and set the file owner to YourClass  Then actually in YourClass h you would have IBOutlet properties  In TopArea xib  you can drag controls to those outlets   Don t forget that in TopArea xib  you may have to click on the View itself and drag that to some outlet  so you have control of it  if necessary   A very worthwhile tip is that when you are doing this for table cell rows  you absolutely have to do that - you have to connect the view itself to the relevant property in your code

User · Answer

In Swift   For example  name of your custom class is InfoView  At first  you create files InfoView xib and InfoView swiftlike this   import Foundation import UIKit  class InfoView  UIView       class func instanceFromNib   - gt  UIView       return UINib nibName   InfoView   bundle  nil  instantiateWithOwner nil  options  nil  0  as  UIView     Then set File s Owner to UIViewController like this     Rename your View to InfoView     Right-click to File s Owner and connect your view field with your InfoView     Make sure that class name is InfoView     And after this you can add the action to button in your custom class without any problem     And usage of this custom class in your MainViewController   func someMethod         var v   InfoView instanceFromNib       v frame   self view bounds     self view addSubview v

User · Answer

If you want to keep your CustomView and its xib independent of File s Owner  then follow these steps   Leave the File s Owner field empty  Click on actual view in xib file of your CustomView and set its Custom Class as CustomView  name of your custom view class  Add IBOutlet in  h file of your custom view  In  xib file of your custom view  click on view and go in Connection Inspector  Here you will all your IBOutlets which you define in  h file Connect them with their respective view    in  m file of your CustomView class  override the init method as follow  - CustomView    init      CustomView  result   nil      NSArray  elements     NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed  NSStringFromClass  self class   owner self options  nil       for  id anObject in elements                if   anObject isKindOfClass  self class                          result   anObject              break                      return result      Now when you want to load your CustomView  use the following line of code   CustomView alloc  init

User · Answer

Answering my own question about 2 or something years later here but     It uses a protocol extension so you can do it without any extra code for all classes       Prerequisites ------------- - In IB set the view s class to the type hook up any IBOutlets - In IB ensure the file s owner is blank      public protocol CreatedFromNib       static func createFromNib   - gt  Self      static func nibName   - gt  String     extension UIView  CreatedFromNib      public extension CreatedFromNib where Self  UIView        public static func createFromNib   - gt  Self            guard let nibName   nibName   else   return nil           guard let view   NSBundle mainBundle   loadNibNamed nibName  owner  nil  options  nil  last as  Self else   return nil           return view            public static func nibName   - gt  String            guard let n   NSStringFromClass Self self  componentsSeparatedByString      last else   return nil           return n             Usage  let myView   MyView   createFromNib

User · Answer

Well you could either initialize the xib using a view controller and use viewController view  or do it the way you did it  Only making a UIView subclass as the controller for UIView is a bad idea   If you don t have any outlets from your custom view then you can directly use a UIViewController class to initialize it    Update  In your case   UIViewController  genericViewCon     UIViewController alloc  initWithNibName   CustomView      Assuming you have a reference for the activity indicator in your custom view class CustomView  myView    CustomView   genericViewCon view   parentView addSubview myView     And when necessary  myView activityIndicator startAnimating     or stop   Otherwise you have to make a custom UIViewController to make it as the file s owner so that the outlets are properly wired up    YourCustomController  yCustCon     YourCustomController alloc  initWithNibName   YourXibName      Wherever you want to add the view you can use     parentView addSubview yCustCon view     However passing the another view controller already being used for another view  as the owner while loading the xib is not a good idea as the view property of the controller will be changed and when you want to access the original view  you won t have a reference to it    EDIT  You will face this problem if you have setup your new xib with file s owner as the same main UIViewController class and tied the view property to the new xib view   i e    YourMainViewController -- manages -- mainView CustomView -- needs to load from xib as and when required    The below code will cause confusion later on  if you write it inside view did load of YourMainViewController  That is because self view from this point on will refer to your customview  - void viewDidLoad       UIView  childView     NSBundle mainBundle  loadNibNamed   YourXibName  owner self options nil  objectAtIndex 0

[iphone] Correct way to load a Nib for a UIView subclass

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