Visual Format Language
Visual Format Syntax
The following are examples of constraints you can specify using the visual format. Note how the text visually matches the image.
[button]-[textField]
[button(>=50)]
|-50-[orchidBox]-50-|
V:[topField]-10-[bottomField]
[maroonView][oceanView]
[button(100@20)]
[button1(==button2)]
[flexibleButton(>=70,<=100)]
|-[find]-[findNext]-[findField(>=20)]-|
The notation prefers good visualization over completeness of expressibility. There are constraints that cannot be expressed in visual format syntax, although most of the constraints that are useful in real user interfaces can be. One useful constraint that cannot be expressed is a fixed aspect ratio (for example, imageView.width = 2 * imageView.height
). To create such a constraint, you must useconstraintWithItem:attribute:relatedBy:toItem:attribute:multiplier:constant:
.
Visual Format String Grammar
The visual format string grammar is defined as follows (literals are shown in code font
; e denotes the empty string).
Symbol
Replacement rule
<visualFormatString> |
(<orientation>:)? (<superview><connection>)? <view>(<connection><view>)* (<connection><superview>)? |
<orientation> |
|
<superview> |
|
<view> |
|
<connection> |
e| |
<predicateList> |
<simplePredicate>|<predicateListWithParens> |
<simplePredicate> |
<metricName>|<positiveNumber> |
<predicateListWithParens> |
|
<predicate> |
(<relation>)?(<objectOfPredicate>)( |
<relation> |
|
<objectOfPredicate> |
<constant>|<viewName> (see note) |
<priority> |
<metricName>|<number> |
<constant> |
<metricName>|<number> |
<viewName> |
Parsed as a C identifier. This must be a key mapping to an instance of |
<metricName> |
Parsed as a C identifier. This must be a key mapping to an instance of |
<number> |
As parsed by |
Note: For the objectOfPredicate
production, a viewName
is only acceptable if the subject of the predicate is the width or height of a view. That is, you can use [view1(==view2)]
to specify that view1
and view2
have the same width.
If you make a syntactic mistake, an exception is thrown with a diagnostic message. For example:
Expected ':' after 'V' to specify vertical arrangement |
V|[backgroundBox]| |
^ |
A predicate on a view's thickness must end with ')' and the view must end with ']' |
|[whiteBox1][blackBox4(blackWidth][redBox]| |
^ |
Unable to find view with name blackBox |
|[whiteBox2][blackBox] |
^ |
Unknown relation. Must be ==, >=, or <= |
V:|[blackBox4(>30)]| |
^ |