UIAppearance not taking effect on UILabels created programmatically

Question

We have extended UILabel to be able to apply standard fonts and colors for all uses of a given label type in our apps. Eg.

@interface UILabelHeadingBold : UILab         


        

Answer 1

I was having this exact same issue, but in Swift. A custom UILabel's appearance would work if added from a storyboard, but not if added from code.

Here's a solution I found in Swift that's working for me:

class MyLabel: UILabel { }

extension UILabel {
    @objc dynamic var customFont: UIFont! {
        get { return self.font }
        set { self.font = newValue }
    }

    @objc dynamic var customColor: UIColor! {
        get { return self.textColor }
        set {  self.textColor = newValue }
    }
}

Then add these lines where you configure your app appearance:

MyLabel.appearance().customFont = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 20)
MyLabel.appearance().customColor = UIColor.magenta