Visual Format Language
Visual Format Syntax
The following are examples of constraints you can specify using the visual format. Note how the text visually matches the image.
-
Standard Space
-
[button]-[textField]
Width Constraint
-
[button(>=50)]
Connection to Superview
-
|-50-[orchidBox]-50-|
Vertical Layout
-
V:[topField]-10-[bottomField]
Flush Views
-
[maroonView][oceanView]
Priority
-
[button(100@20)]
Equal Widths
-
[button1(==button2)]
Multiple Predicates
-
[flexibleButton(>=70,<=100)]
A Complete Line of Layout
-
|-[find]-[findNext]-[findField(>=20)]-|
The notation prefers good visualization over completeness of expressibility. There are constraints that cannot be expressed in visual format syntax, although most of the constraints that are useful in real user interfaces can be. One useful constraint that cannot be expressed is a fixed aspect ratio (for example, imageView.width = 2 * imageView.height
). To create such a constraint, you must useconstraintWithItem:attribute:relatedBy:toItem:attribute:multiplier:constant:
.
Visual Format String Grammar
The visual format string grammar is defined as follows (literals are shown in code font
; e denotes the empty string).
Symbol | Replacement rule |
---|---|
<visualFormatString> | (<orientation>:)? (<superview><connection>)? <view>(<connection><view>)* (<connection><superview>)? |
<orientation> | |
<superview> | |
<view> | |
<connection> | e| |
<predicateList> | <simplePredicate>|<predicateListWithParens> |
<simplePredicate> | <metricName>|<positiveNumber> |
<predicateListWithParens> | |
<predicate> | (<relation>)?(<objectOfPredicate>)( |
<relation> | |
<objectOfPredicate> | <constant>|<viewName> (see note) |
<priority> | <metricName>|<number> |
<constant> | <metricName>|<number> |
<viewName> | Parsed as a C identifier. This must be a key mapping to an instance of |
<metricName> | Parsed as a C identifier. This must be a key mapping to an instance of |
<number> | As parsed by |
Note: For the objectOfPredicate
production, a viewName
is only acceptable if the subject of the predicate is the width or height of a view. That is, you can use [view1(==view2)]
to specify that view1
and view2
have the same width.
If you make a syntactic mistake, an exception is thrown with a diagnostic message. For example:
Expected ':' after 'V' to specify vertical arrangement |
V|[backgroundBox]| |
^ |
|
A predicate on a view's thickness must end with ')' and the view must end with ']' |
|[whiteBox1][blackBox4(blackWidth][redBox]| |
^ |
|
Unable to find view with name blackBox |
|[whiteBox2][blackBox] |
^ |
|
Unknown relation. Must be ==, >=, or <= |
V:|[blackBox4(>30)]| |
^ |
Some sample code to create views and then specify multiple constraints using a visual format languagestring, would, therefore, read as follows:
NSDictionary *viewsDictionary = NSDictionaryOfVariableBindings (mybutton1,mybutton2);
// Get a reference to the superview
UIView *superview = self.view;
//Create a label [mylabel setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];mylabel.text = @"My Label"; //Create a button |
//Add the button and label to the superview
[superview addSubview:mylabel];
[superview addSubview:mybutton];
// Get the views dictionary
NSDictionary *viewsDictionary =
NSDictionaryOfVariableBindings(mylabel, mybutton); |
Understanding the iOS 6 Auto Layout Visual Format Language
//Create the constraints using the visual language formatNSArray *constraintsArray = [NSLayoutConstraint
constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"|-[mybutton]-[mylabel(==mybutton)]-|"options:NSLayoutFormatAlignAllBaseline metrics:nilviews:viewsDictionary];
//Work through the array of constraints, applying each to the superviewfor (int i = 0; i<constraintsArray.count; i++) {
}