How to resize a parent view based on the size of subviews layouted with Autolayout

objective-c cocoa resize autolayout nslayoutconstraint
JJD picture JJD · Oct 24, 2012 · Viewed 10.4k times · Source

I am preparing a custom view which looks similar to the example shown in the screenshot. I add all user interface components (labels, text fields, radio buttons, ..) at runtime. To position the elements I use Autolayout constraints. This part works fine so far.

Custom View

The number of elements varies from context to context. I wonder how I could use Autolayout constraints to dynamically resize the parent view (most likely the height of the view). The view constraints therefore should consider the height and margins defined for the currently attached subviews.

Answer

jrturton picture jrturton · Nov 13, 2012

I've done this with the following setup:

  • the container view has no height constraint
  • the top subview has a spacing constraint from the top of the container view
  • the contained views all have spacing constraints between them
  • the bottom view has a spacing constraint to the bottom of the container view

The auto layout system satisfies these constraints by resizing the container to fit its contents.

Of course, you need to dynamically set the constraints as you alter the contents.

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