On 4 Jul 2017, at 17:33, Steve Christensen <punster@...> wrote:

It sounds like a really easy task. Unless there is something else you haven't mentioned the basic idea is to have two views that sit side-by-side, where the ratio of widths is 1:2. If so then you end up with a view hierarchy like this:

controller_view
player_view
board_view

In IB, add two views to controller_view and position them so that their common edges touch and that the other edges are aligned with controller_view. Click on the "add new constraints" button and add constraints to enforce the edge positioning for player_view and then for board_view. Once you apply them you will notice that IB is flagging an error because there are not enough constraints to specify the widths of the two views. Ignore it.

Next, make sure that player_view and board_view are both selected, click on the "add new contraints" button again and click the "equal widths" checkbox, then apply the constraint. IB should now resize the two views so that they have equal widths. You're almost there.

Finally, making sure that just player_view is selected, edit the "equal height to: board_view" contraint and change the multiplier to 2. All done.

Now the views should track the actual screen size, keeping their respective widths in proportion to 1/3 and 2/3 of the screen width.

On Jul 4, 2017, at 4:36 AM, Dave <dave@...> wrote:

Hi All,

Does anyone know of an alternative for Auto Layout.

I find myself wasting so much time with it as to be ridiculous, so I’d like to get away from it if possible.

I’m writing a Game for iPhone, iPad and Mac. I’ve decided to have 3 separate projects for these rather than lump it all into one giant project. The Game Engine will port with no compile problems onto all 3 platforms so all I need to do is the UI for the 3. I’m concentrating on the iPhone for now.

The game doesn’t really have a massive UI. There is a Game Setup screen (Window) and a Game Play screen. I’m only worrying about the Main Game Play Screen for now, this contains a left “Player” Area and a right Board area. The Player Area is 1/3 of the width of the screen (this App is landscape only) and the board takes up the other 2/3’s. The board was quite easy to get working with a bunch of nested Stack Views, but the rest of Ui is proving to be too hard to do with AU.

When I started this project, I decided to give AU a try (I’d previously tried to get on with it twice before) and had hoped that the tools would have improved enough to make it usable and practical to use, however, sadly this isn’t the case, so its better to back out now rather than further down the line.

So, how to lay this out without AU?

I’ve know how I've done this in the past, and adapting the technique in this case would mean:

1. Picking a Nominal device for the initial design, I’d pick iPhone 5s in this case, take the Size of the Root View 568, 320 which would be a constant in the App.
2. The App would read the size of the Root View and set a scaling factor.
3. The App would create and position the views using this scaling factor when it starts up.

I agree its not as flexible as using AU, but it a whole lot quicker and much more maintainable since you are not at the mercy of XCode/IB.

Any one have any other ideas of how to do this?

All the Best
Dave

On Jul 4, 2017, at 4:36 AM, Dave <dave@...> wrote:

Does anyone know of an alternative for Auto Layout.
I find myself wasting so much time with it as to be ridiculous, so I’d like to get away from it if possible.

On Jul 4, 2017, at 5:52 AM, Steve Mills <sjmills@...> wrote:

No. Find a good guide that will really teach you how to use it correctly and you'll thank yourself for taking the small amount of time it takes.

On Jul 5, 2017, at 5:56 AM, Alex Zavatone <zav@...> wrote:

I’ve heard people speak well of Masonry, though I have no experience with it.