Is there a way for Interface Builder to render IBDesignable views which don't override drawRect:

Question

I very rarely override drawRect in my UIView subclasses, usually preferring to set layer.contents with pre-rendering images and often employing multiple sublaye

Answer 1

I think layoutSubviews is the simplest mechanism.

Here is a (much) simpler example in Swift:

@IBDesignable
class LiveLayers : UIView {

    var circle:UIBezierPath {
        return UIBezierPath(ovalInRect: self.bounds)
    }

    var newLayer:CAShapeLayer {
        let shape = CAShapeLayer()
        self.layer.addSublayer(shape)
        return shape
    }
    lazy var myLayer:CAShapeLayer = self.newLayer

    // IBInspectable proeprties here...
    @IBInspectable var pathLength:CGFloat = 0.0 { didSet {
        self.setNeedsLayout()
    }}

    override func layoutSubviews() {
        myLayer.frame = self.bounds // etc
        myLayer.path = self.circle.CGPath
        myLayer.strokeEnd = self.pathLength
    }
}

I haven't tested this snippet, but have used patterns like this before. Note the use of the lazy property delegating to a computed property to simplify initial configuration.