UICollection View Flow Layout Vertical Align

Question

By default, when you are using the flow layout in a collection view, cells are centered vertically. Is there a way to change this alignment ?

Answer 1

I have used something similar to the before answers. In my case I want to align cells by colum with different heights.

import UIKit

class AlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout: UICollectionViewFlowLayout {

    override func layoutAttributesForElements(in rect: CGRect) -> [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]? {
        if let attributes = super.layoutAttributesForElements(in: rect) {
            let sectionElements: [Int : [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]] = attributes
                .filter {
                    return $0.representedElementCategory == .cell //take cells only
                }.groupBy {
                    return $0.indexPath.section //group attributes by section
            }

            sectionElements.forEach { (section, elements) in
                //get suplementary view (header) to align each section
                let suplementaryView = attributes.first {
                    return $0.representedElementCategory == .supplementaryView && $0.indexPath.section == section
                }
                //call align method
                alignToTopSameSectionElements(elements, with: suplementaryView)
            }

            return attributes
        }

        return super.layoutAttributesForElements(in: rect)
    }

    private func alignToTopSameSectionElements(_ elements: [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes], with suplementaryView: UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes?) {
        //group attributes by colum 
        let columElements: [Int : [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]] = elements.groupBy {
            return Int($0.frame.midX)
        }

        columElements.enumerated().forEach { (columIndex, object) in
            let columElement = object.value.sorted {
                return $0.indexPath < $1.indexPath
            }

            columElement.enumerated().forEach { (index, element) in
                var frame = element.frame

                if columIndex == 0 {
                    frame.origin.x = minimumLineSpacing
                }

                switch index {
                case 0:
                    if let suplementaryView = suplementaryView {
                        frame.origin.y = suplementaryView.frame.maxY
                    }
                default:
                    let beforeElement = columElement[index-1]
                    frame.origin.y = beforeElement.frame.maxY + minimumInteritemSpacing
                }

                element.frame = frame
            }
        }
    }
}

public extension Array {

    func groupBy  (groupingFunction group: (Element) -> U) -> [U: Array] {

        var result = [U: Array]()

        for item in self {

            let groupKey = group(item)

            if result.has(groupKey) {
                result[groupKey]! += [item]
            } else {
                result[groupKey] = [item]
            }
        }

        return result
    }
}

This is the result of this layout: