Question

I got a requirements to display a UILabel with background split between two colors, like in this image:

(colors here are black at the bottom and 50% gray at the top – but this is not important). I tried setting the label’s background colour to 50% grey in the interface builder and then do this in the code:

CALayer *sl1 = [[[CALayer alloc] init] autorelease];
sl1.frame = CGRectMake(0, lbl.frame.size.height / 2, lbl.frame.size.width, score1.frame.size.height/2);
sl1.backgroundColor = [[UIColor blackColor] CGColor];
[lbl.layer insertSublayer:sl1 atIndex:0];

Unfortunately, this resulted in the black part being drawn over the text, so the label looks like this:

which is, needless to say, is not something I need. So how can I get this background without turning to custom images? The issue is I need to have UILabel‘s like this in several places, different sizes – so I would need to create multiple versions of the background image.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer 1

this works:

UILabel* myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 50)];
myLabel.text = @"Ciao";
myLabel.textColor = [UIColor greenColor];

UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSizeMake(100, 50));   
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
// drawing with a gray fill color
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(context,  0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 1.0);
// Add Filled Rectangle, 
CGContextFillRect(context, CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, 100, 50));

// drawing with a black fill color
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(context,  0., 0., 0., .9);
// Add Filled Rectangle, 
CGContextFillRect(context, CGRectMake(0.0, 25, 100, 25));

UIImage* resultingImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

myLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:resultingImage];
[self.view addSubview:myLabel];