Using Autolayout Visual Format with Swift?

Question

I\'ve been trying to use the Autolayout Visual Format Language in Swift, using NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat. Here\'s an example of some code that

Answer 1

It slightly annoys me that I'm calling NSLayoutConstraint (singular) to generate constraintsWithVisualFormat... (plural), though I'm sure that's just me. In any case, I have these two top level functions:

snippet 1 (Swift 1.2)

#if os(iOS)
    public typealias View = UIView
#elseif os(OSX)
    public typealias View = NSView
#endif

public func NSLayoutConstraints(visualFormat: String, options: NSLayoutFormatOptions = .allZeros, views: View...) -> [NSLayoutConstraint] {
    return NSLayoutConstraints(visualFormat, options: options, views: views)
}

public func NSLayoutConstraints(visualFormat: String, options: NSLayoutFormatOptions = .allZeros, views: [View] = []) -> [NSLayoutConstraint] {
    if visualFormat.hasPrefix("B:") {
        let h = NSLayoutConstraints("H\(dropFirst(visualFormat))", options: options, views: views)
        let v = NSLayoutConstraints("V\(dropFirst(visualFormat))", options: options, views: views)
        return h + v
    }
    var dict: [String:View] = [:]
    for (i, v) in enumerate(views) {
        dict["v\(i + 1)"] = v
    }
    let format = visualFormat.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("[v]", withString: "[v1]")
    return NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat(format, options: options, metrics: nil, views: dict) as! [NSLayoutConstraint]
}

Which can be used like so:

superView.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraints("B:|[v]|", view))

In other words, views are auto-named "v1" to "v\(views.count)" (except the first view which can be also referred to as "v"). In addition, prefixing the format with "B:" will generate both the "H:" and "V:" constraints. The example line of code above therefore means, "make sure the view always fits the superView".

And with the following extensions:

snippet 2

public extension View {

    // useMask of nil will not affect the views' translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints
    public func addConstraints(visualFormat: String, options: NSLayoutFormatOptions = .allZeros, useMask: Bool? = false, views: View...) {
        if let useMask = useMask {
            for view in views {
                #if os(iOS)
                    view.setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints(useMask)
                #elseif os(OSX)
                    view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = useMask
                #endif
            }
        }
        addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraints(visualFormat, options: options, views: views))
    }

    public func addSubview(view: View, constraints: String, options: NSLayoutFormatOptions = .allZeros, useMask: Bool? = false) {
        addSubview(view)
        addConstraints(constraints, options: options, useMask: useMask, views: view)
    }
}

We can do some common tasks much more elegantly, like adding a button at a standard offset from the bottom right corner:

superView.addSubview(button, constraints: "B:[v]-|")

For example, in an iOS playground:

import UIKit
import XCPlayground

// paste here `snippet 1` and `snippet 2`

let view = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 500, height: 500))
XCPShowView("view", view)
view.backgroundColor = .orangeColor()
XCPShowView("view", view)
let button = UIButton(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 50, height: 50))
button.setTitle("bottom right", forState: .Normal)

view.addSubview(button, constraints: "B:[v]-|")