Add "Vertical Spacing" programmatically in swift

Question

I have an UIImageView that I've added programmatically and a button which has been added in a Storyboard. And now I need to add "Vertical Spacing" between them, but I don't know how to do it. Would be easy if I would have added UIImageView in storyboard:

enter image description here

How can i solve the problem ?

you must also add constraints programmatically https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AppKit/Reference/NSLayoutConstraint_Class/#//apple_ref/occ/clm/NSLayoutConstraint/constraintWithItem:attribute:relatedBy:toItem:attribute:multiplier:constant: — iamandrewluca, Jul 21 '15 at 15:22

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Let suppose your UIImageView is added in the top as you put in your image above, then you can add constraints programmatically like in the following way:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    // assuming here you have added the self.imageView to the main view and it was declared before. 
    self.imageView.setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints(false)

   // create the constraints with the constant value you want.
   var verticalSpace = NSLayoutConstraint(item: self.imageView, attribute: .Bottom, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: self.button, attribute: .Bottom, multiplier: 1, constant: 50)

  // activate the constraints
  NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([verticalSpace])
}

In the above code I only put the vertical space constraints, you need to set the necessary constraints to avoid warnings about it.

There are several ways of adding constraint programmatically you can read more in this very nice answer SWIFT | Adding constraints programmatically.

I hope this help you.

Thank you for the answer, but now I get an error: "Unable to activate constraint with items — Steve, Jul 21 '15 at 18:55
@user245954 Because it the `UIImageView` respect to the `UIButton` in the above case, if you want to change it , then you need to switch the roles. — Victor Sigler, Sep 29 '15 at 23:06

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 03 '17 at 18:46

To add a vertical spacing between 2 views programmatically, you can use the following Swift 3 code.

view2 is the top view while view1 of the bottom view.

let verticalSpace = NSLayoutConstraint(item: view1, attribute: .top, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: view2, attribute: .bottom, multiplier: 1, constant: 0)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([verticalSpace])

Note: You must add the horizontal position for this to work.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 21 '15 at 15:28

You should take a look at the visual format language, and then take a look at the docs on how to programmatically create constraints here. Basically would look something like this

    NSDictionary *viewsDictionary =
    NSDictionaryOfVariableBindings(self.imageView, self.button);
    NSArray *constraints =
    [NSLayoutConstraint constraintsWithVisualFormat:@"V:[imageView]-10-[button]"
                                            options:0 metrics:nil views:viewsDictionary];

Add "Vertical Spacing" programmatically in swift

3 Answers3