Tutorial 28: Using Collection Views for Complex Layouts 📰📱

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Anis Ali Khan

Build a Magazine-Style News Reader App in Swift

Author: Anis Ali Khan

Duration: ~1 hour

Level: Intermediate

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Project Setup
3. Understanding UICollectionView
4. Designing the News Layout
5. Creating the Data Model
6. Setting Up the Collection View
7. Implementing Compositional Layout
8. Adding Custom Cells
9. Fetching & Displaying News Data
10. Adding Animations & Interactions
11. Testing & Debugging
12. Final Thoughts

1⃣ Introduction

Welcome to this tutorial! Today, we’re building a Magazine-Style News Reader App using UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout in Swift.

What You’ll Learn:

The basics of UICollectionView

How to use UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout for complex grid designs

How to create dynamic, multi-section layouts

How to fetch and display real-world news data

How to add animations & interactions

Let’s get started!

2⃣ Project Setup

Step 1: Create a New Xcode Project

1. Open Xcode → Click “Create a new Xcode project”
2. Select App → Click Next
3. Name it: MagazineReader
4. Set Interface to Storyboard (or SwiftUI if preferred)
5. Set Language to Swift
6. Click Next → Choose a folder → Click Create

Step 2: Add Required Dependencies

We’ll use URLSession for network calls, but if you prefer, you can add Alamofire via Swift Package Manager (SPM).

3⃣ Understanding UICollectionView

UICollectionView is a powerful class for building grid-based and custom layouts. It consists of:

• Cells – Individual content blocks
• Sections – Groupings of cells
• Layouts – Defines how cells are positioned

UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout vs Traditional Layouts

Feature	Flow Layout	Compositional Layout
Simplicity	Easy	Complex
Flexibility	Limited	Highly Flexible
Performance	May lag	Optimized

Since we want a magazine-style grid, we’ll use UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout.

4⃣ Designing the News Layout

Our layout will have:

Featured News (Large Cells) – 1 large article at the top

Trending News (Grid Cells) – 2 articles side by side

Latest News (List Cells) – Scrolling list of articles

5⃣ Creating the Data Model

Create NewsItem.swift

import Foundation

struct NewsItem: Identifiable {
    let id = UUID()
    let title: String
    let description: String
    let imageURL: String
}

6⃣ Setting Up the Collection View

Step 1: Add UICollectionView to ViewController

1. Open Main.storyboard
2. Drag a UICollectionView into the ViewController
3. Set constraints to fill parent view
4. Create an IBOutlet in ViewController.swift:

@IBOutlet weak var collectionView: UICollectionView!

Step 2: Register Cell Classes

collectionView.register(NewsCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: "NewsCell")
collectionView.register(FeaturedNewsCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: "FeaturedNewsCell")

7⃣ Implementing Compositional Layout

Step 1: Define Section Layouts

func createLayout() -> UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout {
    return UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout { sectionIndex, _ in
        switch sectionIndex {
        case 0:
            return self.createFeaturedLayout()
        case 1:
            return self.createTrendingLayout()
        default:
            return self.createListLayout()
        }
    }
}

8⃣ Adding Custom Cells

Step 1: Create NewsCell.swift

import UIKit

class NewsCell: UICollectionViewCell {
    static let identifier = "NewsCell"

    let imageView = UIImageView()
    let titleLabel = UILabel()

    override init(frame: CGRect) {
        super.init(frame: frame)
        setupViews()
    }

    required init?(coder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }

    func setupViews() {
        contentView.addSubview(imageView)
        contentView.addSubview(titleLabel)
        // Set constraints
    }
}

9⃣ Fetching & Displaying News Data

func fetchNews() {
    let url = URL(string: "https://example.com/api/news")!

    URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) { data, _, error in
        if let data = data {
            // Decode JSON and update collectionView
        }
    }.resume()
}

Final Thoughts

You’ve successfully built a Magazine-Style News Reader App using UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout!

Next Steps:

• Fetch real-world news using NewsAPI.org
• Add Dark Mode Support
• Implement Offline Caching

Happy coding!

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Anis Ali Khan