Autolayoutable

In AppKit (or UIKit) projects where I’ve decided to implement user interfaces strictly in code, rather than through storyboards or xibs, it gets tiresome to repeatedly type the following code:

let view = NSView(frame: .zero)
view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false

Here’s a little snippet I’ve been using to cut down on this somewhat:

extension NSView {
  static func autolayoutable() -> Self {
	let view = Self(frame: .zero)
	view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
	return view
  }
}

// Example usage when creating an NSTableView
let tableView = NSTableView.autolayoutable()

This works for almost all views I create but occasionally I want to use some of the convenience initializers for NSButton or NSTextView like labelWithString. In those cases, I don’t use the method above, I just disable autosizing manually.