- Saying "No" to Auto Layout
- Saying "Yes" to Auto Layout
- Constraints
- Constraint Attributes
- Missing Views
- Ambiguous Layout
- Intrinsic Content Size
- Compression Resistance and Content Hugging
- Auto Layout and Frames
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Compression Resistance and Content Hugging
As the name suggests, compression resistance refers to the way a view protects its content. A view with a high compression resistance fights against shrinking. It won’t allow that content to clip. Consider the buttons at the right of Figure 1-10. Both screenshots show an application responding to a constraint that wants to set that button width to 40 points.
)
Figure 1-10. Compression resistance describes how a view attempts to maintain its minimum intrinsic content size. The top screenshot’s button has a high compression resistance.
The top version uses a high compression resistance value and the bottom version uses a lower value. As you can see, the higher priority ensures that the top button succeeds in preserving its intrinsic content. In the case of the bottom button, its resistance is too low. The resizing succeeds and the button compresses, clipping the text.
The button’s “don’t clip” request is still there, but it’s no longer important enough to prevent the “please set the width to 40” constraint from resizing the view to the button’s detriment. Auto Layout often comes across two conflicting requests. When only one of those requests can win, it satisfies the one with the higher priority.
You specify a view’s compression resistance through Interface Builder’s Size Inspector (View > Utilities > Show Size Inspector, View > Content Compression Resistance Priority), as shown in Figure 1-11, or by setting a value in code. Set the value separately for each axis, horizontal and vertical. Values may range from 1 (lowest priority) to 1,000 (required priority):
){kind=link}
[button setContentCompressionResistancePriority:500
forAxis:UILayoutConstraintAxisHorizontal];
Figure 1-11. Adjust a view’s Content Compression Resistance and Content Hugging priorities in IB’s Size Inspector or through code. Although these numbers are presented as a scale of positive integers in IB, they’re actually typed as floats: typedef float UILayoutPriority (iOS) and NSLayoutPriority (OS X).
This inspector is also where you set a view’s content hugging priority. This refers to the way a view prefers to avoid extra padding around its core content (as shown here) or stretching of that core content (as with an image view that uses a scaled content mode). The buttons in Figure 1-12 are being told to stretch to meet up with label at the left.
The button at the top has a high content hugging priority, so it resists that stretching. It hugs to the content (in this case, the word Button). The button in the bottom screenshot has a lower content hugging priority. The request to stretch left wins out. The button pads its contents and produces the wide result you see.
)
Figure 1-12. Content hugging describes a view’s desire to match its frame to the natural size of its content. A strong hugging priority limits the view from growing much larger than the content it presents. A weak priority may allow a view to stretch and isolate its content among a sea of padding.
As with compression resistance, you set a view’s hugging priority in IB’s Size Inspector (refer to Figure 1-11) or in code:
[button setContentHuggingPriority:501
forAxis:UILayoutConstraintAxisHorizontal]