iOS 11 safe area layout guide backwards compatibility

Question

Is enabling Safe Area Layout Guides compatible to iOS below 11?

Answer 1

I found a more convenient way where you only need to subclass the NSLayoutConstraintthat is pinned to your safeArea.

It's kinda hacky since you have to get the ViewController from a UIView but in my opinion, that's an easy and good alternative until Apple finally fixes backward compatibility for the safeArea in Xibs.

Subclass:

class SafeAreaBackwardsCompatabilityConstraint: NSLayoutConstraint {
private weak var newConstraint: NSLayoutConstraint?

override var secondItem: AnyObject? {
    get {
        if #available(iOS 11.0, *) {}
        else {
            if let vc = (super.secondItem as? UIView)?.parentViewController, newConstraint == nil {
                newConstraint = (self.firstItem as? UIView)?.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: vc.topLayoutGuide.bottomAnchor)
                newConstraint?.isActive = true
                newConstraint?.constant = self.constant
            }
        }
        return super.secondItem
    }
}

override var priority: UILayoutPriority {
    get {
        if #available(iOS 11.0, *) { return super.priority }
        else { return 750 }
    }
    set { super.priority = newValue }
}
}

private extension UIView {
var parentViewController: UIViewController? {
    var parentResponder: UIResponder? = self
    while parentResponder != nil {
        parentResponder = parentResponder!.next
        if let viewController = parentResponder as? UIViewController {
            return viewController
        }
    }
    return nil
}
}

Xib: