Call UITableViewCell Method from Method in main VC? - ios

Question

I'm trying to do the opposite of what most people on this topic are asking to do. Most people want a button within a table view cell to call a method in their VC / VC table. I already have a protocol doing that.
Problem / Question
What I am trying to add now is the opposite: I need a button press on my main ViewController (which houses my table) to call a method within my CusomTableViewCell class (note: the button pressed on the main VC is not in the table). I have the protocol class created and the function written, but I don't know how to set the CustomCellViewClass as the delegate. When I did the opposite, I inserted "cell.delegate = self" into the cellForRowAtIndexPath method. I've also used prepareForSegue to assign a delegate. But with no segue and now cell-creation-method, I'm lost!
Example of Desired Function
My end goal is that pressing a button that is in the main VC will change the title of a button within the cells. A simple example would be that I have one view with a single table, on button press the table contents switch between two arrays, cars and motorcycles. When the table is showing cars, the cell button titles should all read "Look inside" but when showing the motorcycle button it should read "Look closer".
Code
I've already written the function that I want the cell to execute:
func cellButton_Title_Switch (currentList: String) {
if vcState == "cars" {
cellButton.setTitle("Look inside", forState: UIControlState.Normal)
}
else {
cellButton.setTitle("Look closer", forState: UIControlState.Normal)
}
}
I created the protocol:
protocol delegateToChangeCellBut {
func cellButton_Title_Switch (currentList: String)
}
I have the self.delegate.cellButton_Title_Switch(currentList) within my VC button and the protocol added to my custom cell class declaration. But how do I do that last missing piece in the custom cell class, where I assign the class to the delegate?

Answer 1

My original problem was that my UITableView's cell has buttons and labels, some of which change to match the state of things outside the table, things handled by the mainViewController.
The custom cell is defined by a customCellviewController. All the custom cell buttons and labels have their IBOutlets connected to the customCellviewController. I couldn't figure out how to make an action/change outside the table (in the mainViewController) immediately cause the cell labels and buttons to change.
Note: Protocols tend to work they other way around (a cell action triggers a function in the mainVC). I couldn't figure out how to use a protocol to solve this. Luckily, the solution was much simpler than a protocol.
The Solution!
I wrote the "updateCell" method that would change the labels and buttons and that code now sits in the customCellviewController. Then I called/triggered the "updateCell" function from the mainViewController simply by adding the call into my cellForRowAtIndexPath function. So it looks something like this:
var stateOfPage = "Green"
//Creates the individual cells. If the above function returns 3, this runs 3 times
func tableView(tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
//Setup variables
let cellIdentifier = "BasicCell"
let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier(cellIdentifier, forIndexPath: indexPath) as! customCell
cell.updateCell(stateOfPage)
return cell
}
Now the above code/method runs when the table gets built. So to update the cells, have some button tap or other action reload the table data:
tableView.reloadData()
Good luck.