CODEWITHSUNDEEP
objective-cios
BenBtg
BenBtg

Reputation: 836

How do I set a property on a custom view instantiated from a XIB

I am just trying to get my head around MVC in Objective C and IOS but am having a problem I'm hoping someone can help me with.

I have created a custom view (created as a child UIView in a XIB) that uses a simple delegate protocol for requesting information from its delegate in drawRect. I have a view Controller that implementes the protocol and is connected to the view through interface builder. The custom view also has a few properties that I want to set on startup. The problem I have is working out how the controller is supposed to access the view to set these properties as it doesn't appear to have direct access to it. Also the properties don't seem to be visible in interface builder inspector as I would expect unlike the delegate property I added.

Initially I thought I could do something like

[self.view setViewIntProperty:10]

But that would be calling the main XIB view and my custom view is actually a child of this view so I need someway to get that specific child view to I can initialise it from the controller in viewDidLoad.

Hopefully that is clear. I'm sure this should be easy and I've missed something simple but can't see how this should normally work.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2982

Answers (3)

Umair
Umair

Reputation: 1253

Example for setting corner radius of your custom subview (subclass of UIButton in my case) from xib.

  1. Create a property like this 

    @property (nonatomic, assign) IBInspectable CGFloat cornerRadius;

  2. Override setter in your custom view's implementation file.

    -(void)setCornerRadius:(CGFloat)cornerRadius
{
     self.layer.cornerRadius = cornerRadius;
}

  3. Drag your view in xib and change its class to your custom class.enter image description here

  4. Magic... You will see the custom properties appearing in attribute inspector like this. enter image description here

Upvotes: 1

Firoze Lafeer
Firoze Lafeer

Reputation: 17143

You can just create another property on your view controller of type MyCustomView*.

Declare that property as an IBOutlet and you wire that up in IB.

Then in your view controller you can use that property to access that custom view.

Upvotes: 3

Joshua Nozzi
Joshua Nozzi

Reputation: 61228

Your custom view's properties (as opposed to its outlets) can only be set in code unless you create an IB plugin for it.

Your other subviews can be accessed easily if you create an outlet for each of them in your controller. The view outlet is there as the primary view of that view controller. There is nothing preventing you creating additional outlets to other views/controls. Yu would just need to subclass the view controller and add the outlets as needed. Just remember to set the class name of the controller (in Interface Builder) to that of your custom subclass. That will expose the available outlets for you to connect.

You'd still need to create an Interface Builder plugin if you want to make your control's custom properties available in IB's inspector palette. Unless you plan to reuse it frequently in other applications or make it available to others, it's probably easiest just to set the properties in your source code.

Upvotes: 1

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