How to achieve UIButton / UILabel 'padding'

Question

I've got various views in my iPhone application that require padding e.g a custom UIButton with text aligned left, and a UILabel with a background color.

This may be a really stupid question, but how can I apply 'padding' to move the text off the left hand edge?

I've tired using bounds etc without any success.

I know I could create a wrapper view for my UILabel with a background color, but it seems like overkill.

Many thanks.

Answer 1

I am using auto layout. Solution that worked for me was setting UIButton's contentEdgeInsets.

ObjC

button.contentEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0.0f, 30.0f, 0.0f, 30.0f);

Swift

button.contentEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0.0, left: 30.0, bottom: 0.0, right: 30.0)

Answer 2

Here's a sublass of UILabel that has customizable padding using an edgeInset property:

PaddedLabel.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface PaddedLabel : UILabel
@property UIEdgeInsets edgeInsets;
@end

PaddedLabel.m

#import "PaddedLabel.h"
@implementation PaddedLabel
-(void)drawTextInRect:(CGRect)rect {
    return [super drawTextInRect:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(rect, self.edgeInsets)];
}
-(CGSize)intrinsicContentSize {
    CGSize contentSize = [super intrinsicContentSize];
    UIEdgeInsets insets = self.edgeInsets;
    contentSize.height += insets.top + insets.bottom;
    contentSize.width += insets.left + insets.right;
    return contentSize;
}
@end

(This is a simplification of Brody's answer which also works with autolayout.)

Answer 3

Ok the simplest solution I've found so far is:

self.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter; 
[self sizeToFit]; 
CGRect frame = self.frame;
frame.size.width += 20; //l + r padding 
self.frame = frame;

Not exactly what I wanted, but it works.

Answer 4

On Xcode 9, the insets are now located in the Size Inspector instead of the Attributes Inspector:

Answer 5

What about creating a custom class that extends UIButton and overriding this:

- (CGRect)titleRectForContentRect:(CGRect)contentRect
{
    return UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(contentRect, UIEdgeInsetsMake(topPadding, rightPadding, bottomPadding, leftPadding));
}

In the case of UILabel just override:

- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds 
     limitedToNumberOfLines:(NSInteger)numberOfLines;

Answer 6

If you're just looking for a horizontal padding on one line, then this may be enough (it was for me):

NSString* padding = @"  "; // 2 spaces
myLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@%@", padding, name, padding];