Is the most efficient way to constantly update a label on screen to simply change the label's text property?

Question

Say I have to update a label 1000 times a minute. Completely change its string value. Am I best off making 1000 setText: calls per minute? Or is there a more efficient way? Perhaps doing away with labels completely?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 29 '13 at 17:29

1

You basically have two options - update the textproperty of a UILabel or draw an NSString directly onto a UIView (after first erasing the previous value). You'll have to run some tests to see which is more efficient.

answered Sep 29 '13 at 17:29

rmaddy

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 29 '13 at 17:23

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You can update some local field/variable and use Timer which read value from variable as frequent as it necessary and update Label. You can also use some throttle strategies. I'm not an iOS expert so I say what my intuition says to me.

answered Sep 29 '13 at 17:23

szogun1987

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 29 '13 at 17:33

I've used this github library in one of my projects https://github.com/dataxpress/UICountingLabel, which basically subclasses a UILabel and counts down from some initial value to some final value with a custom duration that you can specify, and it is quite efficient and smooth. You can have a look at their code and it might help.

Is the most efficient way to constantly update a label on screen to simply change the label's text property?

3 Answers3