UIKit Adaptive Layout

Guidance for building UIKit layouts that adapt to any window size — layout guides, width-conditional constraint sets, self-sizing cells, and compositional layouts that derive column math from their actual container. The construction counterpart to Auto Layout Debugging.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Building a UIKit screen that must work across iPhone, iPad windows, and resizable environments
• Text lines run edge-to-edge and become unreadable in wide windows
• Switching between compact and regular constraint sets on size-class change
• Collection view columns should follow window width, not device model
• Table or collection cells won't self-size
• Measuring a constraint-built view for a popover or content height

Example Prompts

• "How do I vary my collection view's column count with the window width?"
• "Should my text column use readableContentGuide?"
• "How do I switch constraints when the size class changes?"
• "My table view cells won't self-size — what's missing?"
• "How do I keep content out of the keyboard's way in UIKit?"
• "How do I measure a view built with Auto Layout?"

What This Skill Provides

• The guide table – safeAreaLayoutGuide, layoutMarginsGuide, readableContentGuide (automatic readable width in wide windows), keyboardLayoutGuide, and custom UILayoutGuide spacers
• Width-conditional constraint sets – pre-built compact/regular arrays activated on registerForTraitChanges, with the deactivate-before-activate rule
• Self-sizing cells – the constraint-chain requirement behind automaticDimension and .estimated(_:) dimensions
• Environment-driven compositional layout – column math from NSCollectionLayoutEnvironment.container.effectiveContentSize, the UIKit peer of SwiftUI's adaptive grid
• systemLayoutSizeFitting – measuring constraint-built views outside a layout pass

Related

• Auto Layout Debugging – when the constraints you built break; this skill is how to build them
• UIKit Modernization – the geometry ground rules (scene bounds, traits, resizability at iOS 27) these patterns build on
• SwiftUI Layout – the SwiftUI side of the same adaptivity discipline