Question

I have a GUI class extending UIViewController.

In its function viewDidLoad, I would like to have a UITextField instance. I would like that instance not aligned as a simple CGRect, setting its offset and width and height, but I want it rather to be resized dynamically, making it fill the whole width of the screen, with an offset of 5px from top, left and right each and a height of 20px. How is that done?

It should maintain the “relatively-absolute” positioning regardless of the device orientation, all orientations being supported.

Maybe there’s something like a LayoutManager, as, for instance, GridBagLayout in Java?

Answer 1

You want to set the autoresizingMask property of the view.

UIView *theParentView; // Assume this is the root view that owns the whole screen

CGRect textFieldFrame = CGRectMake(5, // Top-left corner x position
                                   5, // Top-left corner y position
                                   [theParentView bounds].width - 10, // Width
                                   20); // Height

UIView *myView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:textFieldFrame];

// This will make it resize with the parent view, maintaining margins
[myView setAutoresizingMask:UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth];

[theParentView addSubview:myView];

[myView release];

This can all be done from Interface Builder as well. There’s even a little animation showing how the view will resize in Interface Builder.