setting self of UIView background color - objective-c

Question

i'm trying to do this from inside the .m of a custom view class that is not being loaded from the XIB, but rather programmatically:
- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
if (self) {
// Initialization code
self.backgroundColor=[UIColor redcolor];
}
return self;
}
i have the same result whether i put the background color in the initWithFrame or other methods. the background color property doesn't take. from the controller, which owns this custom view, i can set the background color fine, with:
self.mycustomview.backgroundColor=[UIColor redcolor];
But I'd like to do this from within the custom view itself, keep stuff like this independent. both the controller and the custom view import UIKit.
I also tried this, which was available from Code Sense:
self.View.backgroundColor=[UIColor redcolor];
but that doesn't work either. i tried both view and View here. I'm sure I'm overlooking something very obvious.
in the view controller i have this, and it works fine. the custom view is called "mapButtons.h":
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
CGRect frame=CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 460);
self.mapButtons=[[mapButtons alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
self.mapButtons.backgroundColor=[UIColor redColor];
[self.view addSubview:self.mapButtons];
the .h of the custom view is this:
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#interface mapButtons : UIView

Answer 1

If your view is getting created from a XIB (i.e. you added it to some other view using Interface Builder), -initWithFrame: is not going to get called. An object being loaded from a XIB receives -initWithCoder: instead. Try this:
- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder
{
self = [super initWithCoder:coder];
if(self)
{
self.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
}
return self;
}

Answer 2

I have tested again and this is the full source for what I am doing that works
// MapButtons.h
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
// As a note you normally define class names starting with a capital letter
// but I did test this with mapButtons as you had it
#interface MapButtons : UIView
#end
// MapButtons.m
#import "mapButtons.h"
#implementation mapButtons
- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
if (self) {
// Initialization code
self.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
}
return self;
}
#end
// TestAppDelegate.m
#implementation TestAppDelegate
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
MapButtons *view = [[MapButtons alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
[self.window addSubview:view];
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}
The fact that xcode is not auto completing is odd but I seem to have this issue intermittently so I have no real solution. People sometimes suggest deleting the projects derived data and restarting xcode.