CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iphoneiosobjective-cuilabel
pixelfreak
pixelfreak

Reputation: 17834

What is the correct way to re-use UILabel's style?

I have several UILabels which have same visual treatment. Instead of redefining every single property every time, I am thinking of just making copies of an instance and changing the text. Is this how it should be done?

Another way is to create a factory method, but I'm not that fond of the idea.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1180

Answers (2)

PengOne
PengOne

Reputation: 48398

It seems like you want to subclass UILabel so that it defaults to your preferences. It's pretty simple to do. Create a new file in Xcode (and Objective C Class) called CustomLabel (or whatever you like).

CustomLabel.m :

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface CustomLabel : UILabel {
}

@end

CustomLabel.h :

#import "CustomLabel.h"

@implementation CustomLabel

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame {

    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    if (self) {
        // CUSTOMIZATION HERE
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc {
    [super dealloc];
} 

@end

If this seems like overkill, then you can just create a method in your ViewController to do the customization:

-(void)customizeLabel:(UILabel *)label {
    // CUSTOMIZATION HERE
}

then call this on any label you create.

Upvotes: 0

Tyler
Tyler

Reputation: 28874

If you're willing to learn Three20, you could use the TTLabel class, which is incorporated with Three20's stylesheet system, which is basically designed to solve your problem. However, I personally have had trouble parsing Three20's so-called documentation, so I think learning to use this library just to solve your problem is a lot of overhead.

My work-around for this problem is to put together a mini factory method, like this:

// Example:
- (UILabel *)makeLabel {
  UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc] init] autorelease];
  label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
  label.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:kMyFontSize];
  label.textColor = [UIColor blueColor];
  label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
  [self.view addSubview:label];
  return label;
}

Then when I use this method, other code gets cleaner:

UILabel *nameLabel = [self makeLabel];
nameLabel.text = userName;
UILabel *titleLabel = [self makeLabel];
titleLable.text = myTitle;
// Both labels have consistent style.

PengOne suggests subclassing UILabel. That's an option, although I think this factory method does the job just as well with less work.

Upvotes: 6

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