Labels in XCode View, positioned differently in Simulator? - xcode

In XCode 7, on a Swift 2 project, when I place a label onto the View, why is the label centred in XCode, but in the Simulator it's show off to the right?
This is just playing at the moment, where I don't want to play with constraints just yet (which I believe will be used later).

I had the same problem when working through a demo, and this worked for me. Try using the 4.7 inch size view controller:
Look in the middle left hand menu (the Document Outline), if not shown it’s under Editor > Hide Document Outline (a misnomer, clicking it will Show or Hide it).
Click on the View Controller so it's highlighted.
Click on the 4th tab of the right hand one (Utilities: the Attributes Inspector). If not shown it’s under View > Utilities > Show Attributes Inspector.
Under Simulated Metrics is a Size option to change from “Inferred” to “iPhone 4.7-inch”.
You'll need to realign things again, but now these should look central in the View and in the Simulator.
Constraints, when you want to get to them, will probably be more helpful in this regard.

Related

Why isn't storyboard safe area working correctly on iPhone X?

I'm trying to update my app for the new iPhone X. After reading about the safe area feature and the check box "Safe Area Relative Margins" in each UIObject's "Size Inspector" (ruler tab), I didn't think this would be too bad. However, that feature does not seem to be working for me.
Nothing changed for regular iPhones, which is good, however for the X, the top of my app overlaps the top inset of the phone by a third. Is there any known way to fix this* or something I'm missing?
*By fix this, I mean make it so that my objects start below the outcrop, like the second picture.
What is happening:
Desired Behavior (from https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/how-devs-updated-their-apps-for-the-iphone-xs-screen-and-the-notch/):
I too have wasted hours on this. And while I cannot answer your question of why this is broken in Xcode, I can provide a solution.
But first let me note than in Xcode 11.3.1, I experience the same issue in a new project created from scratch.
Set up your storyboard:
On your storyboard, select "Use Safe Area Layout Guides". This will add a safe area to each of your ViewControllers. It will also require you to target iOS9+. You might be able to skip this step though (see step 4 below).
View your storyboard as iPhone 4s.
Fix each ViewController:
Select all views under the top-level view.
Click Editor | Embed In | View Without Inset. This creates a new view and puts all your views inside.
Make this new view expand to the safe area by adding safe area constraints (by control-dragging your new view onto the top level view).
Leading space to safe area
Top space to safe area
Trailing space to safe area
Bottom space to safe area
If you did not opt into using a safe area storyboard above, you may be able to create four equivalent constraints by using the Top Layout Guide, Bottom Layout Guide, and the left/right sides of the top-level view. This may not work in landscape though. And I did not test this.
Set your new view as transparent.
Give your new view a name like "SafeAreaView".
In iOS 11, margins are inset from the safe area. Thus, your zero top margin becomes a 20 top margin — explaining your screen shot. If that's not what you want, set the view's insetsLayoutMarginsFromSafeArea property to false.
In my case modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen has to be set to the view controller being presented

Xcode 8 attribute "hidden" does not hide view in Interface Builder

seems like Apple change how Interface Builder behaves in Xcode 8? Because when I check hidden in Attributes Inspector on a view in Interface Builder, that view is still visible.
This makes it very tedious to work with views where some views needs to be the view with the highest "z value", the front most view that is.
Is there some other way to show the green view in this example, than to change the order of them to the right (i.e. change their "z value")
In the image below hidden is checked, but I still don't see the green view below. You can download this trivial project at github
When the project is run, the green view is indeed shown, but the issues is that it is annoying when working in Interface Builder.
Am I missing something?
I have the same opinion on it and I also believe that it's annoying. I with they gave you the choice to update the actual storyboard before runtime or not but they didn't so for now we have to deal with it.
There is a quick alternative option though. Hidden will not update in the storyboard but alpha will. If you change the alpha it will update in the storyboard so if you want to see the view behind it just change alpha to 0. You can always change it back easily or if your doing it in code, instead of unhiding your view just change the code so the alpha is set to 1.
How about unchecking the installed checkbox of the red view?
This has also the flaw that you have to remember to reinstall it, but you don't have to change the z-order of your views.
This is deliberate. We wouldn't want a view to be hidden from you, the editor, just because it will be hidden when the app runs. You can easily select a covered view, such as the green view, using Shift-Control-Click on the red view (or use the document outline at the left of your screen shot).

Detail View on Storyboard too zoomed in - creates misaligned objects in simulator

I have perhaps a beginner's question but have not found any solutions addressing this specific problem after searching endlessly on stackoverflow and other forums.
My detail view in the storyboard appears to be too zoomed in. At this point, zooming in and out simply zooms in and out on the storyboard, but not the detail view specifically.
Indicators of this are that the alignment arrow to the left of my button is not positioned at half-latitude of the Detail View box, although when I align my button to this marker I do see a crosshair indicating that my button is "centered".
Detail View - Further Out
Upon simulation, it is apparent that using these crosshairs produces a run-time alignment far right and up from being centered. Where my button is currently placed seems to be in the center of the simulator screen but would like my guidelines to allow the button to be centered using the guidelines suggested.
Simulator View
A) How do I "zoom out" within the Detail View so I can see the entire screen in the detail view?
B) How can I center my object if the guidelines are inherently off-center?
Thank you so much for you advice and input.
Are you using constraints to keep the various controls in place etc...?
If not try:
Select all elements in the UI of the detail view. Click on an empty spot somewhere in the View and press CMD + A.
Click on resolve auto layout issues at the bottom right of the Nib editor. (it's the right most icon)
Click on Clear Constraints
Click on resolve auto layout issues again, then Reset to Suggested Constraints
From here, tweak your constraints as per the UI you're working with i.e. iPhone, iPad and whatever orientation it's in etc...
I forgot to mention how I fixed the "too zoomed-in" problem.
In the storyboard controller, on the left navigator panel, within the file inspector, I simply unchecked "Use Size Classes" within the Interface Builder Document section. My view controller changed into a normal iPhone shape and everything finally fit into place.

Xcode 6.1.1 StoryBoard Size

Good morning,
I am new to Xcode and am learning to create iOS applications.
When I open a single view application and click on main.storyboard, my size is w Any h Any. When I decide to add a label and run the iOS simulator (iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S), the label appears somewhere else.
This is really frustrating and I have tried many approaches such as disabling use size classes, changing the storyboard size by clicking the w Any h Any button, and even messing with the constraints as mentioned here: Xcode 6 Storyboard the wrong size?
I am really trying to continue with this but I have seem to hit a wall for a couple of hours now, if someone could shed some light to why I am messing this up, that would be amazing.
EDIT: How can I get it to be a "normal" sized iPhone, such as the iPhone 5s?
You can click on the w Any h Any to change it to a normal iphone size by mousing over the squares and reading which devices they encompass.
You are going to have to use constraints though in order to make anything go where you want it to, I really didn't want to learn them but I couldn't do without them now: they are very useful.
EDIT
Constraints are simple in concept but can be tricky in certain situations:
For any view to have valid constraints that work correctly, it needs to know what the size of the view is and its position in it's "parent container" which is just whatever view or viewController it is inside of.
The little |-O-| shaped button and its neighboring buttons next to "w Any h Any" give you options for positioning and sizing the view. So if you click on a view and then click on that square button in the middle, check the width, height boxes and click the left and top lines in that top positioning thing with sizes in it like so:
Then click on add 4 constraints. You will notice blue lines appear around your view saying that it can properly put it where it needs to go when running the app. If there is any orange or red that means there are conflicting constraints on the view.
Sometimes that can mean you put to many constraints (more than you need) and you just need to delete them in size inspector tab. But more often than not, if that doesn't fix it, I've noticed that I usually have a neighboring view that isn't properly "constrained" and is actually the cause for the other views problems.
How can I get it to be a "normal" sized iPhone, such as the iPhone 5s
You don't. The view controller's main view will be resized correctly when the app runs (on a device or in the simulator), as appropriate for the device type and other aspects of its surroundings.
Your job is to use auto layout so that no matter how the view is resized, its subviews (labels and buttons and so forth) will look good. That is what auto layout is for - it's to help you compensate for the fact that you have no idea what the real size of this view will be at runtime.

How do I get Mac Toolbar Items that look like the standard toolbar buttons?

I'm working on some updates to my first Mac app and I'm trying to get my window's toolbar buttons to look like the toolbar buttons on EVERY standard Mac app. However, for the life of me, I can't find a button type or a barbutton type that gets me what I'm looking for. Am I missing something?
Here is an image showing several Mac apps (Preview, Finder, and Safari) with toolbars at the top which have very-slighty rounded corner buttons which also have a slight gradient on them, etc.
However, in my .xib I've got a toolbar and I've dropped every kind of button I can find on the thing and nothing looks like the standard Mac button.
The first button looks pretty close, but it's clearly not the same color. Am I missing something?
#Matt Ball is right - you can use NSSegmentedControls, even for single one-time click buttons. Just set the number of segments to 1, and set the mode to "Select None".
One of my shipping apps uses this technique, see below:
All of the controls there are NSSegmentedControl, including the single one.
Update: there are a few standard button icons which are meant for toolbars. The NSImage Class Reference has a list.
In the above screenshot, only two of the buttons are using built-in images: NSLeftFacingTriangleTemplate, and NSRightFacingTriangleTemplate. The others I drew myself.

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