iosuikitalignmentframesafearealayoutguide

How do you ignore the safe area in UIKit?


I know you use ignoresSafeArea() in SwiftUI to make some UI-element-frame dismiss the safe area. However, when using UIKit I don't know how to do it. I want to place a UILabel right below the actual screen, but I cannot see it because it is hidden behind the safe area.

import UIKit

class SignInViewController: UIViewController {

    private let headline = UILabel()
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        addLabel()
        view.backgroundColor = .black
        
        
    }
    
    func addLabel() {
        
        headline.text = "SmashPass"
        headline.textColor = UIColor.red
        headline.frame = CGRect(x: 0 , y: 0 , width: 243, height: 29)
        headline.textAlignment = .center
    
        // alignment
        headline.center.x = view.center.x
        headline.center.y = view.frame.minY - 10
        
        view.addSubview(headline)
        
    }

}

Solution

  • Learn about how to use Auto-Layout...

    Here is your code, with modifications to use Constraints and Auto-Layout to place the label at the bottom of the view:

    class SignInViewController: UIViewController {
        
        private let headline = UILabel()
        
        override func viewDidLoad() {
            super.viewDidLoad()
            
            addLabel()
            
            view.backgroundColor = .black
        }
        
        func addLabel() {
            
            headline.text = "SmashPass"
            headline.textColor = UIColor.red
            headline.textAlignment = .center
            
            // -- use Auto-Layout!
            // alignment
            //headline.frame = CGRect(x: 0 , y: 0 , width: 243, height: 29)
            //headline.center.x = view.center.x
            //headline.center.y = view.frame.minY - 10
            
            view.addSubview(headline)
            
            headline.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
            NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
                // label uses full-width
                headline.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leadingAnchor),
                headline.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.trailingAnchor),
                // constrain the label bottom to the view bottom
                headline.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.bottomAnchor),
                // label height is 29-points
                headline.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 29.0),
            ])
            
        }
        
    }
    

    Note: in general, we want to constrain elements with awareness of the Safe-Area...

    Using that code, we'll get this on an iPhone 12 Pro (for example):

    enter image description here

    and, if we set headline.backgroundColor = .yellow so we can see the label's frame:

    enter image description here