Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

iOS Build a Simple iPhone App with Swift Improving Our User Interface Changing the Background Color

Posted by Boipelo Phologolo
Boipelo Phologolo
4,505 Points

changing the background color

where am I going wrong? Let's get some practice working with views and colors! In the editor below you have a view controller subclass.

Add a stored property to the view controller named blueColor and assign an instance of UIColor as the default value.

You can use UIColor's RGB initializer method and pass the values 0,0,255,1.0 for red, green, blue and alpha respectively. Alternatively, UIColor has a property that you can use: UIColor.blue.

ViewController.swift 
class ViewController: UIViewController {
  let blueColor = UIColor (red:0/255.0, green: 0/255.0, blue: 255/255.0, alpha: 1.0)
   let backgroundColor = UIColor.blueColor 

  override func viewDidLoad() {
      super.viewDidLoad()
      // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
  }

  override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
      super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
      // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
  }
}
Thom Benjamin
Thom Benjamin
10,494 Points
Thom Benjamin
Thom Benjamin
10,494 Points

If you're setting blueColor to be the UIColor, you're creating a variable, not a property. So I guess you only have to say:

let backgroundColor = blueColor

I'm not sure about how this works in Swift, but it's worth the try.

1 Answer

Nick Kohrn
Nick Kohrn
38,025 Points
Nick Kohrn
Nick Kohrn
38,025 Points

Either of the following will work:

let blueColor: UIColor = .blue

let blueColor = UIColor.blue

let blueColor = UIColor(red:0/255.0, green: 0/255.0, blue: 255/255.0, alpha: 1.0)

You are not able to create two properties and make one of them equal to the value of another by implementing them in the way that you have. You can use a computed property, though, to achieve what you're trying to do. The following will allow you to create a blueColor property and use a computed backgroundColor property to access the value stored in the blueColor property:

let blueColor = UIColor.blue

var backgroundColor: UIColor {
    return blueColor
}

However, in the instructions for the code challenge that you posted, I don't see where it asks you to create a backgroundColor property, so I'm not sure if that will cause errors when trying to complete the challenge, but the solution that I provided should work for you.