Evenly space multiple views within a container view

Question

Auto Layout is making my life difficult. In theory, it was going to be really useful when I switched, but I seem to fight it all of the time.

I\'ve made a demo proje

Answer 1

Android has a method of chaining views together in its constraint based layout system that I wanted to mimic. Searches brought me here but none of the answers quite worked. I didn't want to use StackViews because they tend to cause me more grief down the line than they save up front. I ended up creating a solution that used UILayoutGuides placed between the views. Controlling their width's allows different types of distributions, chain styles in Android parlance. The function accepts a leading and trailing anchor instead of a parent view. This allows the chain to be placed between two arbitrary views rather than distributed inside of the parent view. It does use UILayoutGuide which is only available in iOS 9+ but that shouldn't be a problem anymore.

public enum LayoutConstraintChainStyle {
    case spread //Evenly distribute between the anchors
    case spreadInside //Pin the first & last views to the sides and then evenly distribute
    case packed //The views have a set space but are centered between the anchors.
}

public extension NSLayoutConstraint {

    static func chainHorizontally(views: [UIView],
                                  leadingAnchor: NSLayoutXAxisAnchor,
                                  trailingAnchor: NSLayoutXAxisAnchor,
                                  spacing: CGFloat = 0.0,
                                  style: LayoutConstraintChainStyle = .spread) -> [NSLayoutConstraint] {
    var constraints = [NSLayoutConstraint]()
    guard views.count > 1 else { return constraints }
    guard let first = views.first, let last = views.last, let superview = first.superview else { return constraints }

    //Setup the chain of views
    var distributionGuides = [UILayoutGuide]()
    var previous = first
    let firstGuide = UILayoutGuide()
    superview.addLayoutGuide(firstGuide)
    distributionGuides.append(firstGuide)
    firstGuide.identifier = "ChainDistribution\(distributionGuides.count)"
    constraints.append(firstGuide.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: leadingAnchor))
    constraints.append(first.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: firstGuide.trailingAnchor, constant: spacing))
    views.dropFirst().forEach { view in
        let g = UILayoutGuide()
        superview.addLayoutGuide(g)
        distributionGuides.append(g)
        g.identifier = "ChainDistribution\(distributionGuides.count)"
        constraints.append(contentsOf: [
            g.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: previous.trailingAnchor),
            view.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: g.trailingAnchor)
        ])
        previous = view
    }
    let lastGuide = UILayoutGuide()
    superview.addLayoutGuide(lastGuide)
    constraints.append(contentsOf: [lastGuide.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: last.trailingAnchor),
                                    lastGuide.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: trailingAnchor)])
    distributionGuides.append(lastGuide)

    //Space the according to the style.
    switch style {
    case .packed:
        if let first = distributionGuides.first, let last = distributionGuides.last {
            constraints.append(first.widthAnchor.constraint(greaterThanOrEqualToConstant: spacing))
            constraints.append(last.widthAnchor.constraint(greaterThanOrEqualToConstant: spacing))
            constraints.append(last.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: first.widthAnchor))
            constraints.append(contentsOf:
                distributionGuides.dropFirst().dropLast()
                    .map { $0.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: spacing) }
                )
        }
    case .spread:
        if let first = distributionGuides.first {
            constraints.append(contentsOf:
                distributionGuides.dropFirst().map { $0.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: first.widthAnchor) })
        }
    case .spreadInside:
        if let first = distributionGuides.first, let last = distributionGuides.last {
            constraints.append(first.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: spacing))
            constraints.append(last.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: spacing))
            let innerGuides = distributionGuides.dropFirst().dropLast()
            if let key = innerGuides.first {
                constraints.append(contentsOf:
                    innerGuides.dropFirst().map { $0.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: key.widthAnchor) }
                )
            }
        }
    }

    return constraints
}