VMTableViewArrayDataSource

A simple category to use static UITableViewCells without having to use storyboards

Install:

If you use CocoaPods, this is as simple as

pod 'VMTableViewStaticCells'

If you don't use CocoaPods, just download the source and copy the content of the folder VMTableViewStaticCells in your project. You can #import "UITableView+StaticCells.h" and this is all you'll need.

Usage:

Setup the UITableView

To setup the UITableView to work with static cells via code, you only have to

self.tableView.dataSource = self.tableView;
self.tableView.chainedDelegate = self;

Don't worry for setting the dataSource to the tableView itself, it will automatically forward all the methods to the chainedDelegate!

Setup a static cell for your UITableView programmatically

It's as simple as calling

self.tableView.items[0][1] = staticCell;

And the second row of the first section will automagically be a static cell, as set up in the staticCell instance.

Setup a static cell loaded from a XIB

Nothing simpler! Just

self.tableView.items[1][1] = [UITableViewCell loadFromNib:@"StaticCells" cellWithIdentifier:@"buttonCell"];

To load the UITableViewCell with the reuseIdentifier equal to "buttonCell". Or if you want to use tags,

self.tableView.items[1][3] = [UITableViewCell loadFromNib:@"StaticCells" cellWithTag:10];

And the UITableViewCell will be loaded from the same XIB, but based on the tag value.

Mix static and dynamic cells

You can setup a fully-static UITableView, but you can also mix static and dynamic cells, in the same section or in different sections. To do this, simply setup as above only the static cells you need. In the

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath

method, you will get the indexPath automatically translated to your system. This means that, e.g.:

self.tableView.items[0][0] = staticCell1;
self.tableView.items[0][2] = staticCell2;

self.dynamicItems = @[myItem, myItem2];

In this scenario, you will only get

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath

called twice. Once for the item [0][1] and once for the item [0][3]. BUT, you will actually get index paths with values [0][0] and [0][1], so that you don't have to remember where the static cells are and translate indexes of the array because it's all already done by the UITableView itself ;) Anyway, if you set up everything with a clever method of translating indexes or with some data structure that doesn't care of getting the indexes translated, you can always access the original indexPath by calling

[indexPath originalIndexPath];

Keep in mind that in

- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView

you should only return the number of sections you manage yourself (not sections with only static cells). To help the category work better, please

return 0 in

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section

for all the sections you don't manage (completely static sections) like in the following snippet:

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if(section == 0)
        return _firstSectionObjects.count;
    else if(section == 1)
        return _secondSectionObjects.count;
    else if(section == 3)
        return _fourthSectionObjects.count;
    else
        return 0; //third section is completely static
}

Advanced ways of setting up the static cells

There are several ways to setup the static cells. Apart from initializing the cells programmatically or from a XIB file, you can setup arrays of static cells in the following ways:

• You can pass a NSIndexPath directly instead of using indexed subscripting.

NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForItem:0 inSection:2];
self.tableView.items[indexPath] = staticCell1;

• You can pass a whole NSArray of static cells.

self.tableView.items[1] = @[staticCell1, staticCell2, staticCell3];

Removing static cells at runtime

When you're done with a static cell after the user generated some interesting event, you can simply set nil instead of the static cell and reload the data when you're ready.

self.tableView.items[0][0] = nil;
[self.tableView reloadData];