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I've been developing iOS apps for the past 3 years and learned to do so without the use of nibs and storyboards. With the release of iOS 8 and the new iPhones there are ALOT of factors to take into account when developing for iPhone and even iPad devices (Resolution, Screen size, etc.).

The first problem I ran into with Xcode 6 is you can't create a empty project anymore. The closest option is a single view application. I found the following answer here.

Now it seems that apple is really pushing auto-layout, the use of the size classes and the use of storyboards and Interface builder. Is there any way to support the native resolutions of the iPhone 5, 6 and 6 plus and do this programmatically? The only option I can see is defining the frame of each UI element for each device which will lead to a ton of code.

Community
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user3420761
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    Use constraints and `autoresizingMasks` as needed. You don't need "tons of code". if done properly. – rmaddy Sep 24 '14 at 17:57
  • http://www.apeth.com/iOSBook/ch14.html#_autolayout – matt Sep 24 '14 at 18:13
  • Even not using autolayout it is trivial to create views programmatically that look good from iPhone 4's all the way up to iPads, and everything in between. If you want things to scale with the screen size, base them off the of view bounds/frame and/or use auto-resizing masks... That way it will appear the same no matter what size the screen is. – Mike Sep 24 '14 at 18:21

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Auto layout IS programmatic. Apple has given the necessary API's to handle size classes entirely in code if you don't want to use interface builder or storyboards and there has always been ways of adding constraints in code too.

You might think IB is a silly tool for noob developers or is only for basic apps and you need more power or whatever your reason, but maybe trying to do every thing yourself in code is a bet you have now lost. Give tools a try.

Acey
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It's referred to as VFL or Visual Format Language.

VFL Tutorial

Bill3
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