Why masksToBounds = YES prevents CALayer shadow?

Question

With the following snippet, I\'m adding a drop shadow effect to one my UIView. Which works pretty well. But as soon as I set the view\'s masksToBounds prope

Answer 1

This is the Swift 3 and IBDesignable version of the answer posted by @TheSquad.

I used the same concept while making changes in the storyboard file. First I moved my targetView (the one which requires corner radius and shadow) inside a new containerView. Then I added the following lines of code (Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35372901/419192) to add some IBDesignable attributes for UIView Class:

@IBDesignable extension UIView {
/* The color of the shadow. Defaults to opaque black. Colors created
 * from patterns are currently NOT supported. Animatable. */
@IBInspectable var shadowColor: UIColor? {
    set {
        layer.shadowColor = newValue!.cgColor
    }
    get {
        if let color = layer.shadowColor {
            return UIColor(cgColor: color)
        }
        else {
            return nil
        }
    }
}

/* The opacity of the shadow. Defaults to 0. Specifying a value outside the
 * [0,1] range will give undefined results. Animatable. */
@IBInspectable var shadowOpacity: Float {
    set {
        layer.shadowOpacity = newValue
    }
    get {
        return layer.shadowOpacity
    }
}

/* The shadow offset. Defaults to (0, -3). Animatable. */
@IBInspectable var shadowOffset: CGPoint {
    set {
        layer.shadowOffset = CGSize(width: newValue.x, height: newValue.y)
    }
    get {
        return CGPoint(x: layer.shadowOffset.width, y:layer.shadowOffset.height)
    }
}

/* The blur radius used to create the shadow. Defaults to 3. Animatable. */
@IBInspectable var shadowRadius: CGFloat {
    set {
        layer.shadowRadius = newValue
    }
    get {
        return layer.shadowRadius
    }
}

/* The corner radius of the view. */
@IBInspectable var cornerRadius: CGFloat {
    set {
        layer.cornerRadius = newValue
    }
    get {
        return layer.cornerRadius
    }
}

After adding this code, I went back to the storyboard and on selecting my containerView I could now find a new set of attributes in the attributes inspector:

Other than adding values for these attributes as per my choice, I also added a corner radius to my targetView and set the masksToBounds property as true.

I hope this helps :)