Passing data from custom UI cell to view controller - ios

Question

I am creating a pokedex app and the way I want it to work is basically there is a scroller at the top of the screen which allows you to select any pokemon and upon choosing the pokemon, underneath the scroller the entry for the pokemon will show up (bulbasaur will be there by default until a pokemon is selected because bulbasaur is the first pokemon with an ID of 1). To achieve this I have my view controller return two types of cells, the first being a "chooser cell" which is the scroller, and the second being a "description cell" which is the dex entry. I gave the view controller a data member called dex entry and return dex entry in the cellForItemAt function but the image of the cell is not changing (from bulbasaur to whichever pokemon I select). I print to the console what is the value of dex entry's pokemon every time a pokemon is selected so I am sure that the dex entry is being directly changed but I don't know why the image is not changing as well. Below are relevant parts of my code.
view controller (only part of it):
import UIKit
class PokeDexController: UICollectionViewController, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {
var dexEntry = DescriptionCell()
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.title = "PokeDex 386"
collectionView?.backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 52/255.0, green: 55/255.0, blue: 64/255.0, alpha: 1.0)
//collectionView?.backgroundColor = UIColor.white
collectionView?.register(chooserCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: cellID)
collectionView?.register(DescriptionCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: descID)
}
override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
if (indexPath.row == 0)
{
let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: cellID, for: indexPath) as! chooserCell
return cell
}
else{
let descCell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: descID, for: indexPath) as! DescriptionCell
dexEntry = descCell
return dexEntry
}
}
descriptionCell class:
import UIKit
class DescriptionCell: UICollectionViewCell
{
private var pokemon : Pokemon?
{
didSet
{
if let id = pokemon?._id
{
imageView.image = UIImage(named: String(id))
print("Pokemon with the id of " + String(id))
}
}
}
override init(frame: CGRect)
{
super.init(frame: frame)
setupViews()
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
func setPokemon(poke: Pokemon)
{
self.pokemon = poke
}
func getPokemon() -> Pokemon
{
return pokemon!
}
let imageView: UIImageView =
{
let iv = UIImageView()
iv.image = UIImage(named: "1")
iv.contentMode = .scaleAspectFill
return iv
}()
func setupViews()
{
backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 52/255.0, green: 55/255.0, blue: 64/255.0, alpha: 1.0)
addSubview(imageView)
imageView.frame = (CGRect(x: frame.width/6, y: frame.height/30, width: frame.width/4, height: frame.height/4))
}
}
choosercell class (specifically the didSelectItemAt):
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath){
let poke = pokemon[indexPath.row]
print("Selected " + poke._name)
let vc = PokeDexController()
vc.dexEntry.setPokemon(poke: poke)
let name = vc.dexEntry.getPokemon()._name
print(name ?? "nothing there")
}
image of the app and the console output
any help is appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

You need to change the dexEntry when you select a cell and reload the collection view cell.
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath){
let poke = pokemon[indexPath.row]
print("Selected " + poke._name)
let cell = collectionView.cellForItem(at: IndexPath(row: 1, section: 0) as! DescriptionCell
cell.setPokemon(poke: poke)
collectionView.reloadItems(at: IndexPath(row: 1, section: 0))
}
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I haven't solved my problem but I realize that the cell that I am returning in my viewController is independent of dexEntry so as far as I can cell, once that cell is set, it is set, so I now i will figure out how to reload things when a cell is selected so the cell that is returned has an image of a different pokemon.