Why masksToBounds = YES prevents CALayer shadow?

jchatard picture jchatard · Sep 11, 2010 · Viewed 55.1k times · Source

With the following snippet, I'm adding a drop shadow effect to one my UIView. Which works pretty well. But as soon as I set the view's masksToBounds property to YES. The drop shadow effect isn't rendered any more.

self.myView.layer.shadowColor = [[UIColor blackColor] CGColor];
self.myView.layer.shadowOpacity = 1.0;
self.myView.layer.shadowRadius = 10.0;
self.myView.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.0f);
self.myView.layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;
self.myView.layer.masksToBounds = YES; // <-- This is causing the Drop shadow to not be rendered
UIBezierPath *path = [UIBezierPath bezierPathWithCurvedShadowForRect:self.myView.bounds];
self.myView.layer.shadowPath = path.CGPath;
self.myView.layer.shouldRasterize = YES;

Do you have any ideas on this?

Answer

TheSquad picture TheSquad · Sep 11, 2010

Because shadow is an effect done outside the View, and that masksToBounds set to YES will tell the UIView not to draw anything that is outside itself.

If you want a roundedCorner view with shadow I suggest you do it with 2 views:

UIView *view1 = [[UIView alloc] init];
UIView *view2 = [[UIView alloc] init];

view1.layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;
view1.layer.masksToBounds = YES;
view2.layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;
view2.layer.shadowColor = [[UIColor blackColor] CGColor];
view2.layer.shadowOpacity = 1.0;
view2.layer.shadowRadius = 10.0;
view2.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0.0f, 0.0f);
[view2 addSubview:view1];
[view1 release];