Is there a built in way to create round-cornered UILabels? If the answer is no, how would one go about creating such an object?
iPhone OS 3.0 and later supports the cornerRadius
property on the CALayer
class. Every view has a CALayer
instance that you can manipulate. This means you can get rounded corners in one line:
view.layer.cornerRadius = 8;
You will need to #import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>
and link to the QuartzCore framework to get access to CALayer's headers and properties.
One way to do it, which I used recently, is to create a UIView subclass which simply draws a rounded rectangle, and then make the UILabel or, in my case, UITextView, a subview inside of it. Specifically:
UIView
subclass and name it something like RoundRectView
.RoundRectView
's drawRect:
method, draw a path around the bounds of the view using Core Graphics calls like CGContextAddLineToPoint() for the edges and and CGContextAddArcToPoint() for the rounded corners.UILabel
instance and make it a subview of the RoundRectView.label.frame = CGRectInset(roundRectView.bounds, 8, 8);
)You can place the RoundRectView on a view using Interface Builder if you create a generic UIView and then change its class using the inspector. You won't see the rectangle until you compile and run your app, but at least you'll be able to place the subview and connect it to outlets or actions if needed.