Is it possible to set UIView border properties from interface builder?

Solution 1:

Actually you can set some properties of a view's layer through interface builder. I know that I can set a layer's borderWidth and cornerRadius through xcode. borderColor doesn't work, probably because the layer wants a CGColor instead of a UIColor.

You might have to use Strings instead of numbers, but it works!

layer.cornerRadius
layer.borderWidth
layer.borderColor

Update: layer.masksToBounds = true

Update: select appropriate Type for Keypath:

Solution 2:

Rich86Man's answer is correct, but you can use categories to proxy properties such as layer.borderColor. (From the ConventionalC CocoaPod)

CALayer+XibConfiguration.h:

#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface CALayer(XibConfiguration)

// This assigns a CGColor to borderColor.
@property(nonatomic, assign) UIColor* borderUIColor;

@end

CALayer+XibConfiguration.m:

#import "CALayer+XibConfiguration.h"

@implementation CALayer(XibConfiguration)

-(void)setBorderUIColor:(UIColor*)color
{
    self.borderColor = color.CGColor;
}

-(UIColor*)borderUIColor
{
    return [UIColor colorWithCGColor:self.borderColor];
}

@end

layer.borderUIColor

The result will be apparent during runtime, not in Xcode.

Edit: You also need to set layer.borderWidth to at least 1 to see the border with the chosen color.

In Swift 2.0:

extension CALayer {
    var borderUIColor: UIColor {
        set {
            self.borderColor = newValue.CGColor
        }

        get {
            return UIColor(CGColor: self.borderColor!)
        }
    }
}

In Swift 3.0:

extension CALayer {
    var borderUIColor: UIColor {
        set {
            self.borderColor = newValue.cgColor
        }

        get {
            return UIColor(cgColor: self.borderColor!)
        }
    }
}

Solution 3:

Similar answer to iHulk's one, but in Swift

Add a file named UIView.swift in your project (or just paste this in any file) :

import UIKit

@IBDesignable extension UIView {
    @IBInspectable var borderColor: UIColor? {
        set {
            layer.borderColor = newValue?.cgColor
        }
        get {
            guard let color = layer.borderColor else {
                return nil
            }
            return UIColor(cgColor: color)
        }
    }
    @IBInspectable var borderWidth: CGFloat {
        set {
            layer.borderWidth = newValue
        }
        get {
            return layer.borderWidth
        }
    }
    @IBInspectable var cornerRadius: CGFloat {
        set {
            layer.cornerRadius = newValue
            clipsToBounds = newValue > 0
        }
        get {
            return layer.cornerRadius
        }
    }
}

Then this will be available in Interface Builder for every button, imageView, label, etc. in the Utilities Panel > Attributes Inspector :

Note: the border will only appear at runtime.