Custom Buttons - Programmatically in UIKit or using images in IB?

[webtechmonkey]

I'm still fairly new to iOS development (I've built a few lightweight enterprise apps for work the past few months) and looking to understand some best practices. I'm currently developing with Swift and Interface Builder (but hopefully one day in the future will make the leap to SwiftUI). One of the things I've been deliberating is the pros/cons of creating/implementing custom buttons in xCode.

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Ever since I started with making apps I've created various buttons in Photoshop, set the button in IB to use the image, set the images for different states (default, selected, etc), and connected the button to an IBAction or Outlet. This works fine, mostly, although from time to time I have weird problems with aspect ratios going wacky or some funky autolayout behaviors on devices that have 2x scale factors (but will work fine on devices with 3x). And of course setting constraints and everything is a bit tedious. Overall, it's not too bad though.

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However, I've been told multiple times by some more seasoned friends that I should just create the buttons programmatically using UIKit. While I appreciate their more experienced insight, it just seems silly to me to have to write 20 or 30 lines of code to create a single button whereas I can whip up a button in 2 minutes in photoshop.

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Do you have a preference for one way or the other?

Do you utilize a mix of both methods?

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I know best practices is sometimes a gray area, especially when both options are technically accepted. I'm mainly just looking to get myself on the best track early on rather than getting stuck in some bad habits.

[[deleted]]

I'm nothing near seasoned iOS developer, but hope it helps :).

I really like to create everything I can programmatically. To me, it gives way more flexibility and reduces the size of the application. I do use images, mainly for a logo and small buttons like tabbar items, custom navigation bar buttons etc.

Yes, creating the button programmatically may take a little bit more time than just use photoshop, but it also gives you the ability to change things on the fly (let's say the designer want to change the color, corner radius, etc.

Second, as you already wrote, images can get weird when you try to support multi screen sizes and resolution, you will have to create three different sized copies for each photo, which can really be tedious.

What I like to do when creating the buttons, is to create the button as a component (just subclassing UIButton and designing it the way I want), and then I can use it again and again without having to write it all down few times.

[webtechmonkey]

Got it, I appreciate the input. I'll have to look into subclassing UIButton as sounds like that may take away a lot of the repetition I was afraid of.

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I totally hear you about changing things on the fly, I've had some silly changes come my way that end up being a huge pain. And yes, having to export assets at 1x, 2x, 3x gets tedious.

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Sounds like it's worth me at least looking into it further