Evenly space multiple views within a container view

Question

Auto Layout is making my life difficult. In theory, it was going to be really useful when I switched, but I seem to fight it all of the time.

I\'ve made a demo proje

Answer 1

Late to the party but I have a working solution for creating a menu horizontally with spacing. It can be easily done using == in NSLayoutConstraint

const float MENU_HEIGHT = 40;

- (UIView*) createMenuWithLabels: (NSArray *) labels
    // labels is NSArray of NSString
    UIView * backgroundView = [[UIView alloc]init];
    backgroundView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false;

    NSMutableDictionary * views = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
    NSMutableString * format = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithString: @"H:|"];
    NSString * firstLabelKey;

    for(NSString * str in labels)
    {
        UILabel * label = [[UILabel alloc] init];
        label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false;
        label.text = str;
        label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
        label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
        [backgroundView addSubview: label];
        [label fixHeightToTopBounds: MENU_HEIGHT-2];
        [backgroundView addConstraints: [label fixHeightToTopBounds: MENU_HEIGHT]];
        NSString * key = [self camelCaseFromString: str];
        [views setObject: label forKey: key];
        if(firstLabelKey == nil)
        {
            [format appendString: [NSString stringWithFormat: @"[%@]", key]];
            firstLabelKey = key;
        }
        else
        {
            [format appendString: [NSString stringWithFormat: @"[%@(==%@)]", key, firstLabelKey]];
        }
    }

    [format appendString: @"|"];

    NSArray * constraints = [NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat: (NSString *) format
                                                                               options: 0
                                                                               metrics: nil
                                                                                 views: (NSDictionary *) views];
    [backgroundView addConstraints: constraints];
    return backgroundView;
}