viewDidLoad for UIView?

There is no such method in general. The question is, where is your _theView coming from.

If your view, including its subview, is loaded from the same nib/xib/storyboard then you can use awakeFromNib which will be called after the complete object hierarchy has been loaded from the archive, so your _theView should be set as well.

If your view is created programmatically but does not create the subview for _theView itself, that means there has to be a place in your code where you add that subview. In that case you have two options

• Either hide _theView from the caller after you added it
• Or declare a prepareForDisplay method (or similar) on your view class and call that after your view has been created and _theView has been assigned. In that prepareForDisplay (or whatever name you choose) method you can do whatever you like, e.g. hide _theView.

I would not recommend to abuse layoutSubviews for this as it is meant for a different purpose and will be called several times during the lifetime of a view, not just once as you want it to be. Yes you can save whether it was called before, but I would consider that a hack as well. Better create your own method to initialize the view in a way you want after you set it up correctly and call that.

Try

-awakeFromNib method

Or in xib set the view property hidden for your subview

The accepted answer is misleading. awakeFromNib will always be called, not just if a nib is used. From the apple docs:

awakeFromNib:

Prepares the receiver for service after it has been loaded from an Interface Builder archive, or nib file.

Link

In the next example I've used only a storyBoard You can test this very easily.

This is our ViewController:

ViewController.m:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()

@end

@implementation ViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    NSLog(@"viewDidLoad");
}

-(void)awakeFromNib
{
    NSLog(@"awakeFromNib in view controller");
}

@end

RedView.m:

#import "RedView.h"

@implementation RedView

-(void)awakeFromNib
{
        NSLog(@"awakeFromNib inside RedView");
        self.green.hidden = YES;
}

@end

Order of print:

1. awakeFromNib in view controller
2. awakeFromNib inside RedView
3. viewDidLoad

And of course the green view will be hidden.

---

Edit:

awakeFromNib won't be called if you use only code to create your view but you can call it yourself or better yet, create your own method.

Example without a StoryBoard (only code):

RedView.m:

#import "RedView.h"

@implementation RedView

-(void)loadRedView
{
    NSLog(@"loadRedView");
    self.green = [[UIView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100)];
    self.green.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor];
    [self addSubview:self.green];
    self.green.hidden = YES;
}
@end

ViewController.m:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()

@end

@implementation ViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.red = [[RedView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 200, 200)];
    self.red.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
    [self.view addSubview:self.red];
    [self.red loadRedView];
}

@end

AwakeFromNib is called only if the view loaded from nib file. layoutSubviews is called for all views, you can add bool _loaded = yes; in the layoutSubviews function and know if the view loaded.