Question

this is my first post, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have to create a number of UIButtons programmatically, which I have done, but the code gets quite messy when there are alot of buttons so I have written a method that will take a UIbutton, string and UIcolor as input and set the rest of the UIButton attributes for me. The problem is the buttons don’t seem to be created. Is what I’m trying possible or am I going about it the wrong way.

The method

-(void)makeButton:(UIButton *)name titleOfButton:(NSString *)title buttonColor:(UIColor *)color {

    name =[[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:(CGRectMake(400,400,150,100))];
    [name setAlpha:(0.5)];
    [name setBackgroundColor: color];
    [name setTitle:title forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    name.titleLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:16];
    name.titleLabel. numberOfLines = 0; // Dynamic number of lines
    name.titleLabel.lineBreakMode = UILineBreakModeWordWrap;
    name.titleLabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];

    [myView addSubview:name];
}

and to call the method

[self makeButton:JDLabel
   titleOfButton:@"JD"
     buttonColor:[UIColor redColor]];

The method has been declared in the header file and the buttons at the top of the class.

Answer 1

This is some code to get you started. This will work if you paste it to your view controller, generally put it in the view you want but change “self.view” to “self” or any view you want as long as you have the reference to it. Just call “addSomeButtons” on “viewDidLoad” or as some target..

- (void)buttonPressed:(UIButton *)sender {
    NSLog(@"button %d pressed", sender.tag+1);
}
- (void)makeButtonWithtitle:(NSString *)title andColor:(UIColor *)color atPositionIndex:(NSInteger)index {    
    const CGFloat buttonHeight = 60.0f;
    UIButton *button = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(.0f, buttonHeight*index, 300.0f, buttonHeight)];    

    button.tag = index;
    [button setAlpha:(0.5)];
    [button setBackgroundColor: color];
    [button setTitle:title forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    button.titleLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:16];
    button.titleLabel. numberOfLines = 0; // Dynamic number of lines
    button.titleLabel.lineBreakMode = UILineBreakModeWordWrap;
    button.titleLabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
    [button addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonPressed:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    [self.view addSubview:button];
    [button release];
}
- (void)addSomeButtons {
    for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {
        [self makeButtonWithtitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"button %d", i+1] andColor:[UIColor greenColor] atPositionIndex:i];
    }
}

Anyway what you are trying to do is very common and very possible. For instance I never ever ever use the interface builder.