I have a collectionView with NSFetchedResultsController. Some cells in the collectionView will have extra embedded UI elements queried from core data, and those extra embedded UI elements also need the update functionality of NSFetchedResultsController.
So my question is, what is the recommended way of approaching this?
Since the number of cells, and whether or not each of them has embedded UI elements depends on the data actually fetched from server, we cannot use sectionKeyPath of NSFRC right?
EDIT: the extra UI elements are not the same model as the embedding cells and thus require separate queries (NSPredicate).
EDIT: Our core data model:
RelationModel
type
status
Relationships(fromProfile, toProfile)
ProfileModel
..many fields
Relationships(photos)
Basically, the extra UI elements will be toProfiles with the embedding cell being the fromProfile. But because there are more than one kind of relations in the app, we decided to have a separate model for relations. And I found it hard to set a relationship from ProfileModel to the RelationModel
A NSFetchedResultsController is a really cool object. It does a fetch and then monitors core-data for changes. While it has an interface that relies on indexPaths so it is natural to think of these indexPath's as the same indexPaths as your collectionView there is no requirement that you do that. The indexPaths of the fetchedResultsController can be different than the indexPaths of the collectionView - you just need to careful about keeping track which indexPaths you are dealing with and translating from one to the other.
For example: You have a set of widgets that you fetching from core data. Some of the widgets have a property of extraWidgetInfo which you want to display in you UI as an extra cell. The fetchedResultsController says that there are 4 element (all in section 0). But the collectionView can display that as
[section1] widget1,
[section2] widget2, widget 2 extra info,
[section3] widget3,
[section4] widget4, widget 4 extra info.
While the fetchedResultsController only says that there are 4 elements, there are 6 cells in the collectionView. You would also have to translate the fetchedResultsController indexPath when dealing with updates. An update would translate to a reload section, and an add would translate to an insertSection and insert of some amount of rows in that section. You could also just call reloadData when core data updates (If you data is updating rarely this may not be a bad option).
Since we require separate queries in each cell, we ended up setting separate NSFetchedResultsController in each cell when it's dequeued. And then have the NSFetchedResultsController set as nil when prepareForReuse.
Related
I want to loop through a TableView and extract the text from all the selected rows. I suppose I "could" create and maintain a special array that is updated every time a row is selected/deselected using the didSelect/didDeselectRowAtIndexPath methods. But creating a separate array seems like an extra step. Is there no way to let the TableView itself serve as the array and then simply loop through it and get the selected rows? What would the code look like? I'm new to Swift, so this might be a silly question.
Part of the problem is that cells are supposed to be reused, and when used this way it is not possible to loop through them all. You could get around this by using a unique reuse identifier for each cell, such as the indexPath itself or some underlying unique id in your model. Then, you could indeed loop through all cells and retrieve whatever state you desired from each.
You would, however, find your application crushed under the weight of too many cells being instantiated and kept in memory. If you don't have many cells you won't be killed, but try it with a big data set and your app will enjoy a very quick death.
It is far more efficient to store one array with a bunch of id's than a large number of memory-intensive UITableViewCells.
As mentioned in comments, you should work with underlying datasource, not the table itself.
For example if your table shows rows from Array, it is way more faster to retrieve strings directly from that array than creating UITableViewCells and get strings from them.
Get indices of selected rows using UITableView's property indexPathsForSelectedRows.
Query datasource for each row.
As has been said the tableview only handles displaying, your datasource is what powers the data shown if you think about it.
Plus as said before the tableview dequeues cells as they scroll on and off the screen.
The best way to achieve what you want is to add a property to your datasource for each element that will allow you to filter out the select properties easily.
How are you storing the state for each selected cell currently? As this is the same functionally you would use to be able to generate your selected text array.
I have to fill a TableView with lots of items (20.000 items frol sqlite) but I know that I will overload it.
Is there a way to load only the needed data when scolling ?
for example if I display 100 items when I scroll over 100 should I load 200 in the table or load only the items 101>200 ?
Also is it possible when returning the Cell content to fetch for EACH element in the embedded sqlite DB ?
Thanks
I have to fill a TableView with lots of items (20.000 items frol sqlite) but I know that I will overload it. Is there a way to load only the needed data when scrolling?
UITableView is designed specifically to load only the cells that are visible. You don't so much "fill" a table as you make the data available to the table via the table's data source. As the table scrolls, it asks its data source for additional cells, and it re-uses the cells that are no longer visible. This minimizes memory usage and maximizes speed. You don't need to do anything to achieve this other than implement the necessary table view data source and delegate methods in your view controller (or some other object).
Also is it possible when returning the Cell content to fetch for EACH element in the embedded sqlite DB ?
Sure, you can do that. Just implement your -tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: method to make the appropriate SQLite query for the requested cell.
This the default functionality of a UITableView, it only draws the necessary rows when they need to appear. This is why you have "reusable cells" because they keep getting reused. I think storing the 20,000 items should not be terrible memory overhead, so I would just try using the UITableView default functionality and you will be fine.
I have abit of a problem, I have a coredata object that is used to populate a UITableView. Each UITableViewCell has a couple of buttons that I am using as check boxes, when the user presses one of these text boxes I would like to update coredata and reload the UITableView so all of the arrays I have are updated to reflect the new data.
Thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that its abit redundant or overkill to be reloading the UITableView every time a button is pressed because some of these UITableViews will contain hundreds of rows with two editable UIButtons each.
So I thought that maybe I should update the current array instead then when the view is either exited or the device is put to sleep I could update the coredata object then? the only thing being I don't really know if this is the right thing to do or possible.
The reason this is such a problem is that when I change a button from say a tick to a cross if I scroll away then come back the buttons tick or cross s reverted to its old value.
I would like to know the best way to handle this case as I have never done anything like this before.
You should use an NSFetchedResultsController and its delegate methods to populate the UITableView. Then when the user taps a button, you simply update the corresponding Core Data entity and not the cell. The NSFetchedResultsController will then call its delegate methods, and you can update just that one cell on which the user made a change.
Also, in cellForRowAtIndexPath, you simple fid the corresponding CoreData entity, and use its attributes/properties to adjust the display of the cell.
Remember, that you must always use some data (NSArray usually) from which to read what to do for the cell at the indexPath when the tableView calls cellForRowAtIndexPath:.
This way, when the fetchedResutsController call its delegate methods, you can simply call reloadCellAtIndexPath on the tableView and then the tableView will call cellForRowAtIndexPath again. As the Core Data entity has been updated, your logic for adjusting the display for that cell will cause the cell to look as it should. It's important that you only ever adjust the way a cell looks in cellForRowAtIndexPath, and base the look on a CoreData entity. Change the look of a cell in multiple places, and you will get problems.
I have a single section table view which is hooked up to a NSFetchedResultsController. When the results from the core data is empty and under some extra conditions I would like to create a custom row which contents will be provided not by CoreData. Is there a clean way of implementing this with the NSFetchedResultsController?
No, NSFetchedResultsController does not offer a feature like that. Just implement your table data source to check how many fetchedObjects the FRC has and use that to decide if the rows of the table should be provided by the FRC or you should instead show your custom empty row.
I have a UITableView that collects data from a database. What I would like to know is if there is some way I can iterate in the UITableView collection and check the values of the cell? The reason I ask is because I would like to update each cell based on the current value that it has (change font, size, color, etc.). I've seen in another SO post regarding this topic, but since the cells are already created and their values are changed it is a bit harder for me. I was thinking of iterating through the UITableView before I call reloadData, but any other suggestions are welcome.
You should not iterate over the cells of UITableView, because some of them (in fact, most of them) may not be present until you request them. UITableView aggressively recycles its cells, so if a cell is not visible, it is very likely that you would be creating it from scratch only to put it back into recycle queue moments later.
Changing your model and calling reloadData the way your post suggests would be the right solution. iOS will ensure that it runs the update in a smallest number of CPU cycles possible, so you do not need to worry about the cells that are already created. This is also the easiest approach in terms of your coding effort.
A table view is for displaying data. The properties of your table cells should only be written to, not read from. The appropriate way of handling this situation would be to update your underlying model objects -- the objects that you use to populate the table view -- as the data changes, and then reload the affected rows.
The issue you'll encounter is that UITableView reuses table cells. Once a table cell scrolls off the screen, it's quite likely that the table view will reuse the same cell to display a different row.
This means it's fundamentally not possible to iterate over the table cells. When you need to refresh a row because its data has changed, you should call reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:withRowAnimation: (or reloadData if all rows have changed) and if the row is visible on screen, UITableView will call your data source methods and give you an opportunity to configure the cell for display.