EZYGradientView

Create gradients and blur gradients without a single line of code

Code Quality Rank: L5

Programming language: Swift

License: MIT License

Tags: UI    

Latest version: v1.5.1

README

[EZYGradientView](Assets/GitBanner.png)

EZYGradientView is a different and unique take on creating gradients and gradients with blur on the iOS platform. The default CAGradientLayer implementation works just fine, but is confusing and gives different results than expected. From the documentation:

The start point corresponds to the first stop of the gradient. The point is defined in the unit coordinate space and is then mapped to the layer’s bounds rectangle when drawn.

It's not really clear what the mapped values for the start and end points will be. If we set the start x coordinate 0.2, it does not resolve to 0.2 of the view's width on the X-axis.

This library attempts to create gradients intuitively. When you use EZYGradientView, you don't need to worry about Apple's default API. What you do need to concern yourself with is:

• What your colors are
• The angle of the gradient
• The ratio in which the two colors are distributed; and finally...
• The intensity with which the colors are dispersed

EZYGradientView exposes five properties you can modify to customize your gradient. The view itself is IBDesignable and its properties IBInspectable which means you can customize your gradient in real time on an xib or storyboard.

Pod Installation

CocoaPods is the preferred way to install this library. Add this command to your Podfile:

pod 'EZYGradientView', :git => 'https://github.com/Niphery/EZYGradientView'

For Objective C

Direct Installation

Download .zip file and extract it. There you will find the EZYGradientView folder, copy EZYGradientView.swift to your respective project.

Integration Methods

Storyboard/Xib

Just follow these simple steps and create a gradient inside your xib or storyboard!

Initial Step (Use this step if downloaded by pod)

while assigning EZYGradientView to UIView on StoryBoard/Xib don't forget to select module

Step	Description
[Step 0a](Assets/Step0a.png)
[Step 0b](Assets/Step0b.png)	It will reflect warning if module is not selected.

Step 1 - Select colors

Step	Description
[Step 1a](Assets/Step1a.png)
[Step 1b](Assets/Step1b.png)

Step 2 - Set gradient angle

Step	Description
[Step 2a](Assets/Step2a.png)	Default is 0º.
[Step 2b](Assets/Step2b.png)	At 45º.
[Step 2c](Assets/Step2c.png)	At 135º.

Step 3 - Set color ratio

Step	Description
[Step 3a](Assets/Step3a.png)	Default is 0.5, that's why colors are equally divided. Valid range 0 to 1.
[Step 3b](Assets/Step3b.png)	At 0.1, the first color takes one-tenth of the view area. The rest is filled by the second.
[Step 3c](Assets/Step3c.png)	At 0.9, the first color takes nine-tenths of the view area. The rest is filled by the second.

Step 4 - Set fade intensity

Step	Description
[Step 4a](Assets/Step4a.png)	Default is 0, that's why there is a sharp boundary where the two colors meet. Valid range 0 to 1.
[Step 4b](Assets/Step4b.png)	At 0.5, there is a much smoother transition between the two colors.
[Step 4c](Assets/Step4c.png)	At 1, the maximum transition smoothness is achieved.

Step 5 - Set isBlur and blur opacity

(This feature is available for ios 8 and above)

Step	Description
[Step 5a](Assets/Step5a.png)	Default is 0, where the blur transparency is minimmum. Valid range 0 to 1.
[Step 5b](Assets/Step5b.png)	At 1.0, where the blur transparency is maximum.(The black spot is a label behind gradient view)
Suggestion	Use this properties to design navigationBar, tabBar, tableHeaderView etc.

Programmatic way

let gradientView = EZYGradientView()
    gradientView.frame = view.bounds
    gradientView.firstColor = UIColor(red: 0.5, green: 0.0, blue: 1.0, alpha: 1.0)
    gradientView.secondColor = UIColor(red: 0.4, green: 1.0, blue: 0.8, alpha: 1.0)
    gradientView.angleº = 185.0
    gradientView.colorRatio = 0.5
    gradientView.fadeIntensity = 1
    gradientView.isBlur = true
    gradientView.blurOpacity = 0.5

    view.insertSubview(gradientView, at: 0)

To-do

• Allow more than two colors to create gradients.
• It may crash if blur properties used in lower version than ios 8.
• Use CoreGraphics blur to replace UIVisualEffectView.

Thanks

• To Sudeep Jaiswal for motivating and special thanks for the documentation and ideas.
• To Angela Yu for the updated courses on iOS 13 & Swift 5.

License

EZYGradientView is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.