What is NSLayoutConstraint "UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Height" and how should I go about forcing it to recalculate cleanly?

Question

I have a UITableView running under iOS 8 and I'm using automatic cell heights from constraints in a storyboard.

One of my cells contains a single UITextView and I need it to contract and expand based on user input - tap to shrink/expand the text.

I'm doing this by adding a runtime constraint to the text view and changing the constant on the constraint in response to user events:

-(void)collapse:(BOOL)collapse; {

    _collapsed = collapse;

    if(collapse)
        [_collapsedtextHeightConstraint setConstant: kCollapsedHeight]; // 70.0
    else
        [_collapsedtextHeightConstraint setConstant: [self idealCellHeightToShowFullText]];

    [self setNeedsUpdateConstraints];

}

Whenver I do this, I wrap it in tableView updates and call [tableView setNeedsUpdateConstraints]:

[tableView beginUpdates];

[_briefCell collapse:!_showFullBriefText];

[tableView setNeedsUpdateConstraints];
// I have also tried 
// [self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:@[indexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationTop];
// with exactly the same results.

[tableView endUpdates];

When I do this, my cell does expand (and animates whilst doing it) but I get a constraints warning:

2014-07-31 13:29:51.792 OneFlatEarth[5505:730175] Unable to simultaneously satisfy constraints.

Probably at least one of the constraints in the following list is one you don't want. Try this: (1) look at each constraint and try to figure out which you don't expect; (2) find the code that added the unwanted constraint or constraints and fix it. (Note: If you're seeing NSAutoresizingMaskLayoutConstraints that you don't understand, refer to the documentation for the UIView property translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints) 

(

    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x7f94dced2b60 V:[UITextView:0x7f94d9b2b200'Brief text: Lorem Ipsum i...'(388)]>",

    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x7f94dced2260 V:[UITextView:0x7f94d9b2b200'Brief text: Lorem Ipsum i...']-(15)-|   (Names: '|':UITableViewCellContentView:0x7f94de5773a0 )>",

    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x7f94dced2350 V:|-(6)-[UITextView:0x7f94d9b2b200'Brief text: Lorem Ipsum i...']   (Names: '|':UITableViewCellContentView:0x7f94de5773a0 )>",

    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x7f94dced6480 'UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Height' V:[UITableViewCellContentView:0x7f94de5773a0(91)]>"
 )

Will attempt to recover by breaking constraint 

<NSLayoutConstraint:0x7f94dced2b60 V:[UITextView:0x7f94d9b2b200'Brief text: Lorem Ipsum i...'(388)]>

388 is my calculated height, the other constraints on the UITextView are mine from Xcode/IB.

The final one is bothering me - I'm guessing that UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Height is the calculated height of the cell when it is first rendered - (I set my UITextView height to be >= 70.0) however it doesn't seem right that this derived constraint then overrules an updated user cnstraint.

Worse, although the layout code says it's trying to break my height constraint, it doesn't - it goes on to recalculate the cell height and everything draws as I would like.

So, what is NSLayoutConstraint UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Height (I'm guessing it is the calculated height for automatic cell sizing) and how should I go about forcing it to recalculate cleanly?

Answer 1

Try to lower the priority of your _collapsedtextHeightConstraint to 999. That way the system supplied UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Height constraint always takes precedence.

It is based on what you return in -tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:. Make sure to return the right value and your own constraint and the generated one should be the same. The lower priority for your own constraint is only needed temporarily to prevent conflicts while collapse/expand animations are in flight.