For UITextField, I am currently using the following extension to compute a bounding box for a given row.
func widthHeight(font: UIFont) -> CGRect {
let constraintRect = CGSize(width: 200, height: 1000)
let boundingBox = self.boundingRect(with: constraintRect, options: .usesLineFragmentOrigin, attributes: [NSFontAttributeName: font], context: nil)
return boundingBox
}
Width for constraintRectis the maximum width that I want to allow for the window.
I set the values and cells as follows:
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
if let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: reuse, for: indexPath) as? ChatCollectionViewCell {
let text = self.chatLog[indexPath.row].text
cell.chatTextView.text = text
cell.chatViewWidth = (text?.widthHeight(font: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 16)).width)!
return cell
}
return UICollectionViewCell()
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, layout collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewLayout, sizeForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGSize {
if let text = self.chatLog[indexPath.row].text {
let box = text.widthHeight(font: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 16))
return CGSize(width: view.frame.width, height: box.height + 10)
}
return CGSize(width: self.view.frame.width, height: 60)
}
When this code works, I get massively calculated cell sizes:

As you can see, presentation frames are very confusing. The first line is "Heya", the second line is "How life goes," and the third line is "I'm a stapler, you're a textbook." Some cells are too narrow, some cells are too wide.
Here is another additional code for my custom ViewCell:
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
setupViews()
}
override func layoutSubviews() {
chatView.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: chatViewWidth, height: frame.height)
chatTextView.frame = CGRect(x: chatView.frame.origin.x + 10, y: 0, width: chatView.frame.width - 20, height: chatView.frame.height)
}
func setupViews() {
if isTextFromCurrentUser {
chatTextView.frame = CGRect(x: 10, y: 0, width: frame.width - 140, height: frame.height)
chatTextView.backgroundColor = .white
} else {
chatTextView.frame = CGRect(x: frame.width - 150, y: 0, width: frame.width - 140, height: frame.height)
chatTextView.backgroundColor = .blue
}
chatTextView.font = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 16)
chatTextView.layer.cornerRadius = 9
chatTextView.clipsToBounds = true
chatTextView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizing.flexibleHeight
chatTextView.isScrollEnabled = false
contentView.addSubview(chatView)
contentView.addSubview(chatTextView)
}