Width and Height Equal to its superView using autolayout programmatically?

Question

I\'ve been looking for a lot of snippets in the net and I still can\'t find the answer to my problem. My question is I have a scrollView(SV) and I want to add a button insid

Answer 1

I needed to cover the superview completely. The other ones wouldn't do that during orientation changes. So I wrote a new one which does - using an arbitrary size multiplier of 20. Feel free to change to your needs. Also note this one in fact makes the subview a lot bigger than the superview which might be different from requirements.

extension UIView {
    func coverSuperview() {
        guard let superview = self.superview else {
            assert(false, "Error! `superview` was nil – call `addSubview(_ view: UIView)` before calling `\(#function)` to fix this.")
            return
        }
        self.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
        let multiplier = CGFloat(20.0)
        NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
            self.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.heightAnchor, multiplier: multiplier),
            self.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.widthAnchor, multiplier: multiplier),
            self.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.centerXAnchor),
            self.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.centerYAnchor),
            ])
    }
}

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but it works..

UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
button.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = NO;
// initialize


[coverForScrolView addSubview:button];

NSLayoutConstraint *width =[NSLayoutConstraint
                                    constraintWithItem:button
                                    attribute:NSLayoutAttributeWidth
                                    relatedBy:0
                                    toItem:coverForScrolView
                                    attribute:NSLayoutAttributeWidth
                                    multiplier:1.0
                                    constant:0];
NSLayoutConstraint *height =[NSLayoutConstraint
                                     constraintWithItem:button
                                     attribute:NSLayoutAttributeHeight
                                     relatedBy:0
                                     toItem:coverForScrolView
                                     attribute:NSLayoutAttributeHeight
                                     multiplier:1.0
                                     constant:0];
NSLayoutConstraint *top = [NSLayoutConstraint
                                   constraintWithItem:button
                                   attribute:NSLayoutAttributeTop
                                   relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual
                                   toItem:coverForScrolView
                                   attribute:NSLayoutAttributeTop
                                   multiplier:1.0f
                                   constant:0.f];
NSLayoutConstraint *leading = [NSLayoutConstraint
                                       constraintWithItem:button
                                       attribute:NSLayoutAttributeLeading
                                       relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual
                                       toItem:coverForScrolView
                                       attribute:NSLayoutAttributeLeading
                                       multiplier:1.0f
                                       constant:0.f];
[coverForScrolView addConstraint:width];
[coverForScrolView addConstraint:height];
[coverForScrolView addConstraint:top];
[coverForScrolView addConstraint:leading];

Answer 3

I've picked the best elements from the other answers:

extension UIView {
  /// Adds constraints to this `UIView` instances `superview` object to make sure this always has the same size as the superview.
  /// Please note that this has no effect if its `superview` is `nil` – add this `UIView` instance as a subview before calling this.
  func bindFrameToSuperviewBounds() {
    guard let superview = self.superview else {
      print("Error! `superview` was nil – call `addSubview(view: UIView)` before calling `bindFrameToSuperviewBounds()` to fix this.")
      return
    }

    self.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false

    NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
      self.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.topAnchor),
      self.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.bottomAnchor),
      self.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.leadingAnchor),
      self.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superview.trailingAnchor)
    ])
  }
}

You can use it like this, for example in your custom UIView:

let myView = UIView()
myView.backgroundColor = UIColor.red

self.addSubview(myView)
myView.bindFrameToSuperviewBounds()

Answer 4

Approach #1: Via UIView Extension

Here's a more functional approach in Swift 3+ with a precondition instead of a print (which can perish easily in the console). This one will report programmer errors as failed builds.

Add this extension to your project:

extension UIView {
    /// Adds constraints to the superview so that this view has same size and position.
    /// Note: This fails the build if the `superview` is `nil` – add it as a subview before calling this.
    func bindEdgesToSuperview() {
        guard let superview = superview else {
            preconditionFailure("`superview` was nil – call `addSubview(view: UIView)` before calling `bindEdgesToSuperview()` to fix this.")
        }
        translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
        ["H:|-0-[subview]-0-|", "V:|-0-[subview]-0-|"].forEach { visualFormat in
            superview.addConstraints(NSLayoutConstraint.constraints(withVisualFormat: visualFormat, options: .directionLeadingToTrailing, metrics: nil, views: ["subview": self]))
        }
    }
}

Now simply call it like this:

// after adding as a subview, e.g. `view.addSubview(subview)`
subview.bindEdgesToSuperview()

Note that the above method is already integrated into my HandyUIKit framework which also adds some more handy UI helpers into your project.

---

Approach #2: Using a Framework

If you work a lot with programmatic constraints in your project then I recommend you to checkout SnapKit. It makes working with constraints a lot easier and less error-prone.

Follow the installation instructions in the docs to include SnapKit into your project. Then import it at the top of your Swift file:

import SnapKit

Now you can achieve the same thing with just this:

subview.snp.makeConstraints { make in
    make.edges.equalToSuperview()
}

Answer 5

addConstraint and removeConstraint methods for UIView are going to be deprecated, so it's worth to use 'constraint creation conveniences':

view.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superView.topAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true
view.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superView.bottomAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true
view.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superView.leadingAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true
view.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: superView.trailingAnchor, constant: 0).isActive = true