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

@DongXu's answer is correct. However, I suggest to make those calculations in UICollectionViewFlowLayout's prepare() method. It will prevent multiple calculations on the same cell's attributes. Moreover, prepare() is better place to manage attributes cache.

Answer 2

Swift 4 with functional oriented approach:

class TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout: UICollectionViewFlowLayout {
    override func layoutAttributesForElements(in rect: CGRect) -> [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]? {
        let attributes = super.layoutAttributesForElements(in: rect)?
            .map { $0.copy() } as? [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]

    attributes?
        .reduce([CGFloat: (CGFloat, [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes])]()) {
            guard $1.representedElementCategory == .cell else { return $0 }
            return $0.merging([ceil($1.center.y): ($1.frame.origin.y, [$1])]) {
                ($0.0 < $1.0 ? $0.0 : $1.0, $0.1 + $1.1)
            }
        }
        .values.forEach { minY, line in
            line.forEach {
                $0.frame = $0.frame.offsetBy(
                    dx: 0,
                    dy: minY - $0.frame.origin.y
                )
            }
        }

        return attributes
    }
}

Answer 3

This may or may not work for your particular situation, but I had some luck subclassing UICollectionViewFlowLayout in the following way:

@interface CustomFlowLayout : UICollectionViewFlowLayout
@end

@implementation CustomFlowLayout

- (NSArray *)layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:(CGRect)rect{
    NSArray* attributesToReturn = [super layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:rect];
    for (UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes* attributes in attributesToReturn) {
        if (nil == attributes.representedElementKind) {
            NSIndexPath* indexPath = attributes.indexPath;
            attributes.frame = [self layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:indexPath].frame;
        }
    }
    return attributesToReturn;
}

- (UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *)layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *currentItemAttributes = [super layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:indexPath];

    currentItemAttributes.frame = CGRectOffset(currentItemAttributes.frame, 0, 0.5 * CGRectGetHeight(currentItemAttributes.frame));

    return currentItemAttributes;
}

@end

Answer 4

following code worked for me

@interface TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout : UICollectionViewFlowLayout

- (void)alignToTopForSameLineElements:(NSArray *)sameLineElements;

@end

@implementation TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout

- (NSArray *)layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:(CGRect)rect;
{
    NSArray *attrs = [super layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:rect];
    CGFloat baseline = -2;
    NSMutableArray *sameLineElements = [NSMutableArray array];
    for (UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *element in attrs) {
        if (element.representedElementCategory == UICollectionElementCategoryCell) {
            CGRect frame = element.frame;
            CGFloat centerY = CGRectGetMidY(frame);
            if (ABS(centerY - baseline) > 1) {
                baseline = centerY;
                [self alignToTopForSameLineElements:sameLineElements];
                [sameLineElements removeAllObjects];
            }
            [sameLineElements addObject:element];
        }
    }
    [self alignToTopForSameLineElements:sameLineElements];//align one more time for the last line
    return attrs;
}

- (void)alignToTopForSameLineElements:(NSArray *)sameLineElements
{
    if (sameLineElements.count == 0) {
        return;
    }
    NSArray *sorted = [sameLineElements sortedArrayUsingComparator:^NSComparisonResult(UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *obj1, UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *obj2) {
        CGFloat height1 = obj1.frame.size.height;
        CGFloat height2 = obj2.frame.size.height;
        CGFloat delta = height1 - height2;
        return delta == 0. ? NSOrderedSame : ABS(delta)/delta;
    }];
    UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *tallest = [sorted lastObject];
    [sameLineElements enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop) {
        obj.frame = CGRectOffset(obj.frame, 0, tallest.frame.origin.y - obj.frame.origin.y);
    }];
}

@end

Answer 5

I used this code (https://github.com/yoeriboven/TopAlignedCollectionViewLayout) after DongXu's solution didn't quite work. The only modification was that it's originally designed to be used with a grid so I needed to instantiate the layout with an arbitrarily high column count...

let collectionViewFlowLayout = YBTopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout(numColumns: 1000)

Answer 6

@DongXu: Your solution worked for me too. Here is the SWIFT version if it:

class TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout: UICollectionViewFlowLayout
{
    override func layoutAttributesForElementsInRect(rect: CGRect) -> [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]?
    {
        if let attrs = super.layoutAttributesForElementsInRect(rect)
        {
            var baseline: CGFloat = -2
            var sameLineElements = [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes]()
            for element in attrs
            {
                if element.representedElementCategory == .Cell
                {
                    let frame = element.frame
                    let centerY = CGRectGetMidY(frame)
                    if abs(centerY - baseline) > 1
                    {
                        baseline = centerY
                        TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout.alignToTopForSameLineElements(sameLineElements)
                        sameLineElements.removeAll()
                    }
                    sameLineElements.append(element)
                }
            }
            TopAlignedCollectionViewFlowLayout.alignToTopForSameLineElements(sameLineElements) // align one more time for the last line
            return attrs
        }
        return nil
    }

    private class func alignToTopForSameLineElements(sameLineElements: [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes])
    {
        if sameLineElements.count < 1
        {
            return
        }
        let sorted = sameLineElements.sort { (obj1: UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes, obj2: UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes) -> Bool in

            let height1 = obj1.frame.size.height
            let height2 = obj2.frame.size.height
            let delta = height1 - height2
            return delta <= 0
        }
        if let tallest = sorted.last
        {
            for obj in sameLineElements
            {
                obj.frame = CGRectOffset(obj.frame, 0, tallest.frame.origin.y - obj.frame.origin.y)
            }
        }
    }
}