Adding a background image to UILabel

Question

How to add background image to UILabel in iPhone application. I tried to do this through IB, but with no result.

Answer 1

Try this with the code:

Objective-C:

theLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"blah"]]; 

Swift:

 theLabel.backgroundColor = UIColor(patternImage: UIImage(named: "blah")!) 

Or put the UIImageView by the label (not recommended).

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Update: placing the UIImageView behind the label is not recommended, because then you have to control two views. But if you have to do something that only UIImageView can do, this is a good approach. I suspect your application will work this way.

Answer 2

if you want the image to be stretched to fill the width of the label. try this code.

 UILabel *myLabel=[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 20)]; UIImage *img = [UIImage imageNamed:@"a.png"]; CGSize imgSize = myLabel.frame.size; UIGraphicsBeginImageContext( imgSize ); [img drawInRect:CGRectMake(0,0,imgSize.width,imgSize.height)]; UIImage* newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext(); UIGraphicsEndImageContext(); myLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:newImage]; 

Answer 3

Swift 2.2: set background image with background color

  UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(stationNameLabel.frame.size, false, 0.0) let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(); let components = CGColorGetComponents(color.CGColor) CGContextSetRGBFillColor(context, components[0], components[1], components[2], 0.4); CGContextFillRect(context, CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, stationNameLabel.frame.size.width, stationNameLabel.frame.size.height)); targetImage.drawInRect(CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, stationNameLabel.frame.size.width, stationNameLabel.frame.size.height)) let resultImage: UIImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext() UIGraphicsEndImageContext() label.backgroundColor = UIColor(patternImage: resultImage) 

Answer 4

  let messageBackgroundView = UIImageView() messageBackgroundView.image = UIImage(named: "chat-background") if messageBackgroundView.superview != lblChatdata.superview { lblChatdata.superview!.insertSubview(messageBackgroundView, belowSubview: lblChatdata) messageBackgroundView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ messageBackgroundView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: lblChatdata.leadingAnchor), messageBackgroundView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: lblChatdata.trailingAnchor), messageBackgroundView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: lblChatdata.topAnchor), messageBackgroundView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: lblChatdata.bottomAnchor), ]) messageBackgroundView.contentMode = .scaleAspectFill } 

Answer 5

@pixelfreak, your right. A UIColor instance with a color image template has serious performance issues when assigning it backroundcolor

 cell.cellLabel.backgroundColor = UIColor(patternImage: UIImage(named: "background")!)