Array of UIButtons in Swift 4

Question

I've made a series of checkboxes in UiKit with UIButtons:

@IBOutlet weak var Box1: UIButton!
@IBOutlet weak var Box2: UIButton!
@IBOutlet weak var Box3: UIButton!
....
@IBOutlet weak var Box59: UIButton!




// Gives the button an action
@IBAction func Box1(_ sender: UIButton) {
    sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
}
@IBAction func Box2(_ sender: UIButton) {
    sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
}
@IBAction func Box3(_ sender: UIButton) {
    sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
}
    ....
@IBAction func Box59(_ sender: UIButton) {
    sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
}




// Creates button images of checkbox and unchecked box
var BoxON = UIImage(named: "CheckBox")
var BoxOFF = UIImage(named:"UnCheckBox")




// Allows the button to be set to the image, if selected or not 
override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated)

    Box1.setImage(BoxOFF, for: .normal)
    Box1.setImage(BoxON, for: .selected)

    Box2.setImage(BoxOFF, for: .normal)
    Box2.setImage(BoxON, for: .selected)

    Box3.setImage(BoxOFF, for: .normal)
    Box3.setImage(BoxON, for: .selected)
    ....
    Box59.setImage(BoxOFF, for: .normal)
    Box59.setImage(BoxON, for: .selected)

    }

This is all the code necessary to make as many checkboxes as possible. However, each checkbox requires creating/moving a button to the right spot on the storyboard, linking the button from the storyboard to the button variable that was just coded. This can take a lot of time since I need over 100 buttons per view controller.

Is there a faster way to do this by making an array of buttons? or something similar?

Answer 1

It is possible to declare an IBOutlet as array

• Create an IBOutlet as array

  @IBOutlet var boxes : [UIButton]!
  

• Connect all buttons to the same outlet (in the desired order)

• In viewDidAppear use a loop or forEach

  override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
      super.viewDidAppear(animated)
  
      boxes.forEach {
          $0.setImage(BoxOFF, for: .normal)
          $0.setImage(BoxON, for: .selected)
      }
  }
  

• Add unique tags to the buttons (optional).

• Create one IBAction and connect all buttons to the action

• Use a switch statement to distinguish the buttons by index in the array or by tag

  @IBAction func boxTouched(_ sender: UIButton) {
      sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
      let index = boxes.index(of: sender)!
      switch index {
         // handle the cases
      }
  }
  
  @IBAction func boxTouched(_ sender: UIButton) {
      sender.isSelected = !sender.isSelected
      switch sender.tag {
         // handle the cases
      }
  }