UICollectionView controls

The UICollectionView is a key view type in UIKit and Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. The Fiori Design Language utilizes collection views in a number of floorplans, especially Object Details, Overview, as well as in the Gallery View, Object CollectionView and Attachments section of the Create View.

The SAPFiori utilizes UICollectionView instances in a number of controls. When the content for those controls should be managed by the developer, it typically exposes the collection view as a public property in the API. A developer should use the regular UIKit API’s to configure and populate the item views of the collection, and handle things like taps and transitions.

The SAPFiori controls exposing a collection view property include:

These controls implement some context-specific behavior for the collection view–usually around layout and sizing–but when starting to implement a custom collection case, the starting point for a developer should be to work directly with *UICollectionView***.

Then, the developer can use one or more of the UICollectionViewLayout types from the SAPFiori framework to govern the item layout, and/or choose from the available UICollectionViewCell subclasses in the framework to match the design specification.

UICollectionViewLayout Subclasses

FUICollectionViewLayout.horizontalScroll

The .horizontalScroll layout extends UICollectionViewFlowLayout. This layout should be used when the user should pan horizontally in the collection view, to view items off-screen to the left or right. Items in a section extend in a single row to infinity, so items will not wrap to new lines.

A developer should set the itemSize property of the layout to specify the standard dimensions of the cell items. Alternatively, the developer can implement the UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout to specify unique sizes for each cell item.

A developer may optionally return views to the UICollectionViewDataSource collectionView(_:viewForSupplementaryElementOfKind:at:) method, to set ‘supplementary’ views to the collection view’s section header or footer. Multiple sections are supported, though cells in all sections will scroll simultaneously, so single section collections are most common.

Important

this layout ignores the estimatedItemSize property, even if it is assigned.

FUICollectionViewLayout.horizontalFlow

The .horizontalFlow layout extends UICollectionViewFlowLayout by adding a new optional property: minimumScaledItemSize. minimumScaledItemSize enables the dimensions of the collection view cell items to be scaled upwards, to fill the width of the collection view’s contentSize.

The developer can allow the layout to scale any number of cell items to fit the contentSize width, or can set a predetermined number of items that should fit the contentSize width by setting the numberOfColumns property. This is useful when the number of items rendered in the collection view varies on different screens, but a common size is desired.

The .horizontalFlow layout also controls the inter-item spacing and line spacing, so that the minimumInteritemSpacing and minimumLineSpacing values provided by the developer are used precisely, rather than being adjusted by the AutoLayout engine.

With the introduction of this new size property, the UICollectionViewFlowLayout item size is managed by the following priority:

  1. Autolayout system, if estimatedItemSize is set not equal to CGSize.zero
  2. FUICollectionViewHorizontalFlowLayout, with numberOfColumns property, if minimumScaledItemSize is set not equal to CGSize.zero
  3. FUICollectionViewHorizontalFlowLayout, if minimumScaledItemSize is set not equal to CGSize.zero
  4. itemSize property (Note: collectionView(_:layout:sizeForItemAt:) value is ignored)

Default Flow Layout Behavior

Flow Layout Behavior, Using minimumScaledItemSize

FUICollectionViewLayout.autosizingColumnFlow

The autosizingColumnFlow resizes collection view cell items to lay them out according to a specified number of columns. All items per row are top-aligned, though the cell item height may vary, based upon the AutoLayout system’s height calculation for the cell. The leading/trailing edges of the first and last columns abut the respective margins of the content view.

The developer may specify the number of columns by setting the numberOfColumns property.

Collection view cell items supplied to the UICollectionViewDataSource.collectionView(_:cellForItemAt:) method for collection views utilizing this flow layout should be well-prepared for the AutoLayout engine to calculate content sizes, especially heights.

FUICollectionViewLayout.keyValueColumnFlow

The keyValueColumnFlow is a variant of the autosizingColumnFlow, with preconfigured layout characteristics for rendering collections of FUIKeyValueCollectionViewCell items.

  • minimumInteritemSpacing is set to 80.
  • minimumLineSpacing is set to 24.
  • sectionInset is set to UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 8, 0, 8).