iOS - Just a quick way to create a shadow on any view

Sometimes you would want a shadow on a view. Easiest and quickest way is to just add it on the view's layer: [sourcecode language="c"] -(void)loadView { CGRect frame = [[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]; self.view = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:frame]; self.view.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth; self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor]; UIView *glowView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(frame.size.width /2 -10, frame.size.height /2 -30, 20, 60)]; glowView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleBottomMargin | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleTopMargin | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleLeftMargin | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleRightMargin; glowView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor]; [self.view addSubview:glowView]; //Setup the shadow on the view's CALayer. CALayer *viewLayer = glowView.layer; viewLayer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(0, 0); viewLayer.shadowColor = [[UIColor yellowColor] CGColor]; viewLayer.shadowPath = [UIBezierPath bezierPathWithRect:glowView.bounds].CGPath; viewLayer.shadowRadius = 10.0f; viewLayer.shadowOpacity = 1.0f; //Let's animate it while we're at it. CABasicAnimation *animation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"shadowOpacity"]; animation.duration = 0.5f; animation.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionLinear]; animation.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1.0]; animation.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.0]; animation.autoreverses = YES; animation.repeatCount = HUGE_VALF; [viewLayer addAnimation:animation forKey:@"shadowOpacity"]; } [/sourcecode] I must admit, this is kind of basic stuff. But it seems a lot of people actually forget about the fact that all UIView subclasses are based on Core Animation CALayers. See the source code https://github.com/xebia/ios-DemoForBlog and try the example, the interesting bits about this example are all contained within the fourth tab of the application, it's the XSDFourthViewController in the code.