ios - Creating UI elements programmatically in Objective-C

Question

I have been working on automating some aspects of creating UI elements and have created this method that seems to work:

    - (void) viewDidLoad
        {
            [super viewDidLoad];
            button = [self createButton:button xPos:30 yPos:100 width:100 height:30  caption:@"autoButton" textPos:NSTextAlignmentCenter textClr:[UIColor blackColor] backClr:[UIColor yellowColor]];
            [self.view addSubview: button];
        }

    - (UIButton *) createButton:(UIButton *)control xPos:(CGFloat)x yPos:(CGFloat)y width:(CGFloat)width height:(CGFloat)height caption:(NSString *)caption textPos:(NSTextAlignmentCenter)textPosition textClr:(UIColor *)textColor backClr:(UIColor *)backColor
        {
            control = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)];
            [control setTitle:caption forState:UIControlStateNormal];
            control.titleLabel.textAlignment = textPosition;
            control.backgroundColor = backColor;
            [control setTitleColor: textColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
            return control;
        }

1. Is there anything wrong/bad with this implementation?

2. Instead of using methods, would it be possible to implement the same thing with just plain old functions? It's a little long-winded to have to indicate the parameter names, xPos:30 yPos:100 width:100 height:100, etc.

Would be nice to be able to just do something like:

button = createButton(30, 100, 100, 30, @"autoButton", NSTextAlignmentCenter, [UIColor blackColor], [UIColor yellowColor]);

Is this doable?

Answer 1

1. Fine except it makes no sense to pass in the button parameter. Just return a UIButton object.

   - (void) viewDidLoad
       {
           [super viewDidLoad];
           button = [self createButtonWithxPos:30 yPos:100 width:100 height:30  caption:@"autoButton" textPos:NSTextAlignmentCenter textClr:[UIColor blackColor] backClr:[UIColor yellowColor]];
           [self.view addSubview: button];
       }
   
   - (UIButton *) createButtonWithxPos:(CGFloat)x yPos:(CGFloat)y width:(CGFloat)width height:(CGFloat)height caption:(NSString *)caption textPos:(NSTextAlignmentCenter)textPosition textClr:(UIColor *)textColor backClr:(UIColor *)backColor
       {
           UIButton *control = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)];
           [control setTitle:caption forState:UIControlStateNormal];
           control.titleLabel.textAlignment = textPosition;
           control.backgroundColor = backColor;
           [control setTitleColor: textColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
           return control;
       }
   

2. Fine, use a function or a method. Up to you. As long as you don't need self involved, a function works.

   UIButton *createButton(CGFloat x, CGFloat y, CGFloat width, CGFloat height, NSString *caption, NSTextAlignmentCenter textPosition, UIColor *textColor, UIColor *backColor) {
       UIButton *control = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(x, y, width, height)];
       [control setTitle:caption forState:UIControlStateNormal];
       control.titleLabel.textAlignment = textPosition;
       control.backgroundColor = backColor;
       [control setTitleColor: textColor forState:UIControlStateNormal];
       return control;
   }
   
   - (void) viewDidLoad
       {
           [super viewDidLoad];
           button = createButton(30, 100, 100, 30, @"autoButton", NSTextAlignmentCenter, [UIColor blackColor], [UIColor yellowColor]);
           [self.view addSubview: button];
       }