macOS core animation, layers do not show up at all unless constrained...

i'm trying to get a text layer and just a normal CA layer (so i can use core graphics on it) to start in a particular position

right now the textlayer does not show up unless it has a constraint applied to it

which is pointless since constraining the width doesn't scale the layer (just the box), which is what i need...
the whole
line doesn't have any effect, and calling setNeedsDisplay doesn't do anything either 😕 (regardless of whether or not the layer is constrained)

if that's not the correct way to change the position of something then i'm totally lost... i suppose i could use the constraint's offset for translation, but that doesn't help for trying to rotate and scale the layers...

so unless the frame and bounds are constrained the layer has 0 frame and bounds?
that just sounds silly 🙄
oh well... i guess it's all guess and check for deciding the tightest frame and bounds... seems pretty silly to me. knowing the width of a word seems to be the most useful thing for my app but it's just not something that can be obtained easily

look's like i will have to use a normal CALayer with core graphics on it to get proper scaling of text too... seeing as how scaling a text layer doesn't actually scale the contents 🙁

thanks for the clarification whiterabbit 🙂

WhiteRabbit said:

If you set the layer frame via setFrame or setBounds and setPosition you shouldn't need to use a constraint.

Click to expand...

i know that, i'm just saying it's silly that you have to manually set it yourself for a CATextLayer, it should automatically resize as the text changes