How does initWithCoder work in combination with Interface Builder?

Question

I have a subclass from UITextField that I use in Interface Builder to build my view (so I set the class of this object to MyCustomTextField in directly in Interface Builder).

Now, I understood that when the view gets loaded, the initWithCoder: method of MyCustomTextField will be invoked, so that I can do some initialization stuff. However, I also found that the attributes that I set in Interface Builder using the Attribute Inspector are NOT initialized in the way I set them!

Does anyone know why this is the case and how I can manage to set the properties of the instance of MyCustomTextField to the values that I set in the Attribute Inspector in Interface Builder?

Most initialization for UI classes should take place in the `awakeFromNib` method, not in `init`. Is it possible to move your "initialization stuff" to that method instead? — Craig Otis, Feb 17 '14 at 12:07

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 17 '14 at 12:42

Your are probably not calling [super initWithCoder:coder] from your custom override of this method. The data is loaded from nib archive into the UIView instance in this super implementation. The correct implementation should look like:

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder
{
    self = [super initWithCoder:aDecoder];
    if (nil != self) {
        // extra initialization code
    }
    return self;
}

How does initWithCoder work in combination with Interface Builder?

1 Answers1