What's the best way to add a drop shadow to my UIView

Question

I am trying to add a drop shadow to views that are layered on top of one another, the views collapse allowing content in other views to be seen, in this vein i want to keep

Answer 1

Try this:

UIBezierPath *shadowPath = [UIBezierPath bezierPathWithRect:view.bounds];
view.layer.masksToBounds = NO;
view.layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;
view.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 5.0f);
view.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5f;
view.layer.shadowPath = shadowPath.CGPath;

First of all: The UIBezierPath used as shadowPath is crucial. If you don't use it, you might not notice a difference at first, but the keen eye will observe a certain lag occurring during events like rotating the device and/or similar. It's an important performance tweak.

Regarding your issue specifically: The important line is view.layer.masksToBounds = NO. It disables the clipping of the view's layer's sublayers that extend further than the view's bounds.

For those wondering what the difference between masksToBounds (on the layer) and the view's own clipToBounds property is: There isn't really any. Toggling one will have an effect on the other. Just a different level of abstraction.

---

Swift 2.2:

override func layoutSubviews()
{
    super.layoutSubviews()

    let shadowPath = UIBezierPath(rect: bounds)
    layer.masksToBounds = false
    layer.shadowColor = UIColor.blackColor().CGColor
    layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0, 5.0)
    layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5
    layer.shadowPath = shadowPath.CGPath
}

---

Swift 3:

override func layoutSubviews()
{
    super.layoutSubviews()

    let shadowPath = UIBezierPath(rect: bounds)
    layer.masksToBounds = false
    layer.shadowColor = UIColor.black.cgColor
    layer.shadowOffset = CGSize(width: 0.0, height: 5.0)
    layer.shadowOpacity = 0.5
    layer.shadowPath = shadowPath.cgPath
}