Best way to add multiple diagonal connection lines between TableViewCells - ios

Question

I'm creating an app that needs to show a tableview like below image
Similar colored circles are to be matched with a line.
Which view i can add the lines?
Or need to create a new view above tableview? But still my tableview needs to be scrolled.
How can i achieve this?
Update for Bounty
I want to implement the same with incliend lines between neighbouring circles. How to achieve the same?
Demonstration below:

Answer 1

create design like this
Based on your requirement just hide upper line and lower line of circle

Answer 2

You need to create collection view in tableview cell. In collection view you create one cell. Design the same user interface like your design. Show and hide the view with matching of rule. It will not affect tableview scrolling. and with this approach you can also provide scroll in collection view cell. i can provide you coded solution if you able to provide me more information. Thanks
You can use this Third Party LIb

Answer 3

You need to use a combination of collection view and a table view to give support for all devices.
1.Create one collection view cell with following layout
Hide upper and lower lines as per your need
Add collection view in table view cell and managed a number of cells in collection view depending upon the current device width and item's in between spacing.

Answer 4

You can create a vertical label without text, set the background color with black and place it behind the circle in view hierarchy and set a width of the label as per your requirement. Then you can hide unhide the label whenever you want.
P.S.: Make sure to hide your cell separator.
I have created a demo project. You can find it here. I tried to match your requirements. You can update the collection view settings to handle the hide and show of labels.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Hope this help.
Thanks!

Answer 5

To connect any circle with any other circle in the cell above / below, it will be easier and cleaner to create the connection lines dynamically rather than building them into the asset as before. This part is simple. The question now is where to add them.
You could have the connection lines between every two cells be contained in the top or bottom cell of each pair, since views can show content beyond their bounds.
There's a problem with this though, regardless of which cell contains the lines. For example, if the top cell contains them, then as soon as it is scrolled up off screen, the lines will disappear when didEndDisplayingCell is called, even though the bottom cell is still completely on screen. And then scrolling slightly such that cellForRow is called, the lines will suddenly appear again.
If you want to avoid that problem, then here is one approach:
One Approach
Give your table view and cells a clear background color, and have another table view underneath to display a new cell which will contain the connection lines.
So you now have a background TVC, with a back cell, and a foreground TVC with a fore cell. You add these TVC's as children in a parent view controller (of which you can set whatever background color you like), disable user interaction on the background TVC, and peg the background TVC's content offset to the foreground TVC's content offset in an observation block, so they will stay in sync when scrolling. I've done this before; it works well. Use the same row height, and give the background TVC a top inset of half the row height.
We can make the connection lines in the back cell hug the top and bottom edges of the cell. This way circles will be connected at their centre.
Perhaps define a method in your model that calculates what connections there are, and returns them, making that a model concern.
extension Array where Element == MyModel {
/**
A connection is a (Int, Int).
(0, 0) means the 0th circle in element i is connected to the 0th circle in element j
For each pair of elements i, j, there is an array of such connections, called a mesh.
Returns n - 1 meshes.
*/
func getMeshes() -> [[(Int, Int)]] {
// Your code here
}
}
Then in your parent VC, do something like this:
class Parent_VC: UIViewController {
var observation: NSKeyValueObservation!
var b: Background_TVC!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let b = Background_TVC(model.getMeshes())
let f = Foreground_TVC(model)
for each in [b, f] {
self.addChild(each)
each.view.frame = self.view.bounds
self.view.addSubview(each.view)
each.didMove(toParent: self)
}
let insets = UIEdgeInsets(top: b.tableView.rowHeight / 2, left: 0, bottom: 0, right: 0)
b.tableView.isUserInteractionEnabled = false
b.tableView.contentInset = insets
self.b = b
self.observation = f.tableView.observe(\.contentOffset, options: [.new]) { (_, change) in
let y = change.newValue!.y
self.b.tableView.contentOffset.y = y // + or - half the row height
}
}
}
Then of course there's your drawing code. You could make it a method of your back cell class (a custom cell), which will take in a mesh data structure and then draw the lines that represent it. Something like this:
class Back_Cell: UITableViewCell {
/**
Returns an image with all the connection lines drawn for the given mesh.
*/
func createMeshImage(for mesh: [(Int, Int)]) -> UIImage {
let canvasSize = self.contentView.bounds.size
// Create a new canvas
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(canvasSize, false, 0)
// Grab that canvas
let canvas = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()!
let spacing: CGFloat = 10.0 // whatever the spacing between your circles is
// Draw the lines
for each in mesh {
canvas.move(to: CGPoint(x: CGFloat(each.0) * spacing, y: 0))
canvas.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: CGFloat(each.1) * spacing, y: self.contentView.bounds.height))
}
canvas.setStrokeColor(UIColor.black.cgColor)
canvas.setLineWidth(3)
canvas.strokePath()
let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()!
UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
return image
}
}
You'd probably want to create a Mesh class and store the images in that model, to avoid redrawing.