How to center table footer view in container programmatically using NSLayoutConstraint?

Question

I am building a screen for an app which has favorites. This screen will display the list of items that a user has favorited. This list is going to be displayed in a table view, pretty vanilla stuff.

I am trying to add a little code for the empty state of the list, when no favorites have been added yet. I'd like to put a UIView in the tableFooter and then put a UILabel in the center of that view. I want the view to take up all the available space within the screen.

So far this is what I have:

self.tableView.tableFooterView = buildTableViewFooter()

Pretty self-explanatory.

func buildTableViewFooter() -> UIView {
  let footer = UIView(frame: self.tableView.frame)
  let label = UILabel()
  label.text = "Use the heart icon to add favorites"
  label.font = UIFont.italicSystemFont(ofSize: 21.0)
  label.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
  label.textAlignment = .center
  label.numberOfLines = 0
  let centerHorizontalConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(
      item: label,
      attribute: .centerX,
      relatedBy: .equal,
      toItem: footer,
      attribute: .centerX,
      multiplier: 1,
      constant: 0
  )
  footer.addSubview(label)
  footer.addConstraints([
      centerHorizontalConstraint,
  ])
  return footer
}

When I run the app, I can tell that my method is firing and the view is being created successfully. However, I don't see the text anywhere in the screen. The LayoutConstraints engine is trying to be helpful but I'm not quite sure what it's trying to tell me:

[LayoutConstraints] Unable to simultaneously satisfy constraints.
    Probably at least one of the constraints in the following list is one you don't want. 
    Try this: 
        (1) look at each constraint and try to figure out which you don't expect; 
        (2) find the code that added the unwanted constraint or constraints and fix it. 
    (Note: If you're seeing NSAutoresizingMaskLayoutConstraints that you don't understand, refer to the documentation for the UIView property translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints) 
(
    "<NSAutoresizingMaskLayoutConstraint:0x60400028a9b0 h=--& v=--& UILabel:0x7fa8565417d0'Use the heart icon to add...'.midX == 0   (active)>",
    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x604000290f90 UILabel:0x7fa8565417d0'Use the heart icon to add...'.centerX == UIView:0x7fa856514e60.centerX   (active)>",
    "<NSAutoresizingMaskLayoutConstraint:0x6040002931f0 h=--& v=--& 'UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Left' UIView:0x7fa856514e60.minX == 0   (active, names: '|':UITableView:0x7fa857889a00 )>",
    "<NSLayoutConstraint:0x60400028a2d0 'UIView-Encapsulated-Layout-Width' UIView:0x7fa856514e60.width == 375   (active)>"
)

Will attempt to recover by breaking constraint 
<NSLayoutConstraint:0x604000290f90 UILabel:0x7fa8565417d0'Use the heart icon to add...'.centerX == UIView:0x7fa856514e60.centerX   (active)>

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

You need to also add y constraint like

let topConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(
  item: label,
  attribute: .top,
  relatedBy: .equal,
  toItem: footer,
  attribute: .top,
  multiplier: 1,
  constant: 10
)

and set this for the label

label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false