Dynamic cell height causing bounce effect when calling reloadRowsAtIndexPaths method - ios

Question

Background: In a tableView, each cell contains a button shown as an image. The effect I wanna show is that when I click the image(button actually), the button's image change to another one.
Bug: Say there are many data (over one page), and if I click one cell's button, the button's image will change BUT with a side effect that the whole tableView will first scroll up a little bit(like a bounce effect) then scroll down to the former place.
What I've done:
in ViewDidLoad method:inboxListTableView.estimatedRowHeight = 60
inboxListTableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension
When I clicked the button (true and false represent different image and the definition in tableView(cellForRowAtIndex:) method):
let cell = sender.superview?.superview as InboxListCellTableViewCell
if let indexPath = inboxListTableView.indexPathForCell(cell) {
let actionToUpdate = actions[indexPath.row]
actionToUpdate.imageButton = !actionToUpdate.imageButton.boolValue
var e: NSError?
if !MOContext.save(&e) {
println(e?.description)
}
}
Then in Fetch Result Controller Delegate method:
func controllerWillChangeContent(controller: NSFetchedResultsController) {
inboxListTableView.beginUpdates()
}
func controller(controller: NSFetchedResultsController, didChangeObject anObject: AnyObject, atIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath!, forChangeType type: NSFetchedResultsChangeType, newIndexPath: NSIndexPath!) {
switch type {
case .Insert:
inboxListTableView.insertRowsAtIndexPaths([newIndexPath], withRowAnimation: .Fade)
case .Delete:
inboxListTableView.deleteRowsAtIndexPaths([indexPath], withRowAnimation: .Fade)
case .Update:
inboxListTableView.reloadRowsAtIndexPaths([indexPath], withRowAnimation: .None)
default:
inboxListTableView.reloadData()
}
actions = controller.fetchedObjects as [Action]
}
func controllerDidChangeContent(controller: NSFetchedResultsController) {
inboxListTableView.endUpdates()
}
I think the bug may caused by two aspects: CoreData and Self sizing cells (dynamic cell height). Because I didn't hit the bug when I use array to hold actions ([Action]) instead of CoreData. However, when I comment inboxListTableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension this code, it didn't "bounce back/ scroll up" but the height of the cell is fixed.
Any ideas? Anything can help! Thank you:)

Answer 1

I had the exact same problem: a little bounce when using dynamic cell heights. The difference in my case is that I didn't use NSFetchedResultsController and I also changed the heights of the cells (expand and collapse them).
After a lot of experimenting I've found a simple solution. Just call scrollToRowAtIndexPath after reloadRowsAtIndexPaths. It worked for me.
tableView.reloadRows(at: [indexPath], with: .none)
tableView.scrollToRow(at: indexPath, at: .none, animated: true)
I call this code when I expand and collapse the cells.
I hope you can use this in your project.

Answer 2

I think the pragmatic solution to your problem is to simply not use the NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate method for this particular update.
You can change the image of the button directly in the button handler. You have to check for this situation in the .Update case of the fetched results controller delegate and make sure you don't call the reloadRowsAtIndexPaths method.
Now you are avoiding the automatic UI-update mechanism and the issue should not occur.
BTW, it is very bad practice to rely on the table view cell's view hierarchy for accessing the index path (superview.superview...). A few years ago, Apple changed the way cells work and code that relied on similar paradigms broke. The same with collection view cells.
Instead, do something like this:
func buttonHandler(sender: UIButton) {
let point = sender.convertPoint(CGPointZero, toView:self.tableView)
let indexPath = self.tableView.indexPathForRowAtPoint(point)
}