If, like me, you’d rather code your GUIs than spend time in Interface Builder, you’ll likely have a lot of code that looks like this:

// make a label
UILabel* someLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];

someLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:12];
someLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
someLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
someLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
someLabel.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0 alpha:0.75];
someLabel.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, -1);

// and now make another label identical to that one, but with a bigger font
UILabel* anotherLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];

anotherLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:16];
anotherLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
anotherLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
anotherLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
anotherLabel.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0 alpha:0.75];
anotherLabel.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, -1);

// and once more for yetAnotherLabel, this time with a tiny font
UILabel* yetAnotherLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];

yetAnotherLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:10];
yetAnotherLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
yetAnotherLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
yetAnotherLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
yetAnotherLabel.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0 alpha:0.75];
yetAnotherLabel.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, -1);

Lots of repetition, not much fun. So. I’ve been toying with this idea of UILabel styles. With a style, the code turns into this:

BBLabelStyle* style = [[BBLabelStyle alloc] init];

style.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
style.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
style.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
style.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0 alpha:0.75];
style.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, -1);

// make a label
UILabel* someLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithLabelStyle:style];
someLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:12];

// and now make another label identical to that one, but with a bigger font
UILabel* anotherLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithLabelStyle:style];
anotherLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:16];

// and once more for yetAnotherLabel, this time with a tiny font
UILabel* yetAnotherLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithLabelStyle:style];
yetAnotherLabel.font = [UIFont sytemFontOfSize:10];

The labels are initialized with the properties defined by the style. All that’s left to do after that is specify the label’s font. What do you think? Useful? Another neat trick is applying multiple styles without them cancelling each other out. Here’s what I mean:

BBLabelStyle* centeredStyle = [[BBLabelStyle alloc] init];
BBLabelStyle* shadowedStyle = [[BBLabelStyle alloc] init];

centeredStyle.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;

shadowedStyle.shadowColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0 alpha:0.75];
shadowedStyle.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, -1);

UILabel* label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithLabelStyles:
    [NSArray arrayWithObjects:centered, shadowed, nil]];

In that example, the shadowedStyle only the shadow properties of offset and color, leaving the textAlignment property unaffected. I’ll put this up on github after a bit of testing. I set up a repository only this afternoon so I’m still getting used to it.