horizontal CAGradientLayer in iOS 7.0

Question

Inside my application I use a CAGradientLayer to set the background of my cell, in this way:

retValue = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdenti         


        

Answer 1

In Swift 4 I've implemented a nice working extension:

extension UIView {

    enum GradientColorDirection {
        case vertical
        case horizontal
    }

    func showGradientColors(_ colors: [UIColor], opacity: Float = 1, direction: GradientColorDirection = .vertical) {
        let gradientLayer = CAGradientLayer()
        gradientLayer.opacity = opacity
        gradientLayer.colors = colors.map { $0.cgColor }

        if case .horizontal = direction {
            gradientLayer.startPoint = CGPoint(x: 0.0, y: 0.0)
            gradientLayer.endPoint = CGPoint(x: 1.0, y: 0.0)
        }

        gradientLayer.bounds = self.bounds
        gradientLayer.anchorPoint = CGPoint.zero
        self.layer.addSublayer(gradientLayer)
    }

}

Answer 2

This questions is fairly old, but I came across it, so others likely will as well. The following code will produce a horizontal gradient running on an iPhone simulator with version 7.0.3

+ (void)drawGradientOverContainer:(UIView *)container
{
    UIColor *transBgColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:1.0 alpha:0.0];
    UIColor *black = [UIColor blackColor];
    CAGradientLayer *maskLayer = [CAGradientLayer layer];
    maskLayer.opacity = 0.8;
    maskLayer.colors = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:(id)black.CGColor, 
    (id)transBgColor.CGColor, (id)transBgColor.CGColor, (id)black.CGColor, nil];

    // Hoizontal - commenting these two lines will make the gradient veritcal
    maskLayer.startPoint = CGPointMake(0.0, 0.5);
    maskLayer.endPoint = CGPointMake(1.0, 0.5);

    NSNumber *gradTopStart = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.0];
    NSNumber *gradTopEnd = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.4];
    NSNumber *gradBottomStart = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.6];
    NSNumber *gradBottomEnd = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1.0];
    maskLayer.locations = @[gradTopStart, gradTopEnd, gradBottomStart, gradBottomEnd];

    maskLayer.bounds = container.bounds;
    maskLayer.anchorPoint = CGPointZero;
    [container.layer addSublayer:maskLayer];
}

I'm not sure why your code doesn't work, but I get odd behaviour if I do not set the anchor point - the gradient is still horizontal though. Maybe it has something to do with it being a cell background view - you could try applying the gradient to the underlying table.

Answer 3

Just came across it now, 3 years after. Thank you Gord for this solution. Here it is in Swift 3.0:

func drawGradientOver(container: UIView) {
    let transBgColor = UIColor.clear
    let black = UIColor.black
    let maskLayer = CAGradientLayer()
    maskLayer.opacity = 0.8
    maskLayer.colors = [black.cgColor, transBgColor.cgColor, transBgColor.cgColor, black.cgColor]

    // Hoizontal - commenting these two lines will make the gradient veritcal
    maskLayer.startPoint = CGPoint(x: 0.0, y: 0.5)
    maskLayer.endPoint = CGPoint(x: 1.0, y: 0.5)

    let gradTopStart = NSNumber(value: 0.0)
    let gradTopEnd = NSNumber(value: 0.4)
    let gradBottomStart = NSNumber(value: 0.6)
    let gradBottomEnd = NSNumber(value: 1.0)
    maskLayer.locations = [gradTopStart, gradTopEnd, gradBottomStart, gradBottomEnd]

    maskLayer.bounds = container.bounds
    maskLayer.anchorPoint = CGPoint.zero
    container.layer.addSublayer(maskLayer)
}