Center UITableView within a subView - ios

Question

I'm ultimately trying to vertically center my table view cells within a UITableView if the total amount of cells * row height < the height of the tableView
My problem is that whenever I try to reference the tableview height (which should be resized when added to its superview. It returns original height of the view as defined in Interface Builder.
Here is the method that adds the subView with the tableView:
- (void)addMissonListView {
missionView = [BSMissionListView loadMissionView:YES];
BSList *list = (BSList *)self.dataModel;
missionView.missionList = list.arrayMissions;
missionView.delegate = self;
missionView.heightofSuperView = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:viewBottomContainer.frame.size.height];
[viewBottomContainer addSubview:missionView];
[viewBottomContainer setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];
[BSUtility setConstraintsOnView:viewBottomContainer relativeTo:missionView withConstant:0];
}
This is the setsConstraintsOnView method that's called:
+ (void)setConstraintsOnView:(UIView *)superView relativeTo:(UIView *)subView withConstant:(int)constant
{
[subView setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];
[superView addConstraint:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:subView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeBottom relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual toItem:superView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeBottom multiplier:1 constant:constant]];
[superView addConstraint:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:subView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeTop relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual toItem:superView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeTop multiplier:1 constant:constant]];
[superView addConstraint:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:subView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeRight relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual toItem:superView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeRight multiplier:1 constant:constant]];
[superView addConstraint:[NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem:subView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeLeft relatedBy:NSLayoutRelationEqual toItem:superView attribute:NSLayoutAttributeLeft multiplier:1 constant:constant]];
}
The subview consists of a tableView inside of UIView. In Interface Builder, the size of the UIView is 320 X 586 and the tableView is 310 x 558.
viewBottomContainer's size in IB is 320 x 408
I'm trying to get the information about the view's and tableView's height in the configureGUI method. And once that works, I'll pass it to another method to create a contentOffset in the TableView. but the NSLog's keep returning the original values, not the resized values.
These are the methods from the BSMissionListView class:
- (void)awakeFromNib {
[super awakeFromNib];
[self configureGUI];
}
- (void)configureGUI {
[super configureGUI];
NSLog(#"Bounds height of the View is %f",self.bounds.size.height);
NSLog(#"Bounds height of the tableView is %f",self.tableViewMissionList.bounds.size.height);
[self setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
}
I'll be happy to post more code if that will be helpful. Thank you!

Answer 1

I was able to solve the problem by passing in the tableView's superView's height by ways of the method that the loaded the tableView nib.
-I added a CGFloat variable to the method that loads the nib in the BSMissionListView Class
-I passed in the viewBottomContainer's height and then used that to set the heightOfSuperView value in the newly modified method.
-heightOfSuperView's value is used to calculate to contentInset of the TableView to center it within the superView
Thank you to #Alex Renyolds for helping me out.
- (void)addMissonListView {
[viewBottomContainer setNeedsLayout];
[viewBottomContainer layoutIfNeeded];
[viewBottomContainer setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];
NSLog(#"Height of bottomViewContrainer: %f", viewBottomContainer.bounds.size.height);
BSList *list = (BSList *)self.dataModel;
missionView = [BSMissionListView loadMissionView:YES heightOfSuperView:viewBottomContainer.bounds.size.height listArray:list.arrayMissions];
missionView.delegate = self;
[viewBottomContainer addSubview:missionView];
[viewBottomContainer setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO];
[BSUtility setConstraintsOnView:viewBottomContainer relativeTo:missionView withConstant:0];
}
BSMissionList
+ (BSMissionListView *)loadMissionView:(BOOL)isEditable heightOfSuperView:(CGFloat)height listArray:(NSMutableArray *)list {
BSMissionListView *missionListView = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:NSStringFromClass([BSMissionListView class]) owner:nil options:nil] lastObject];
missionListView.missionList = list;
missionListView.isEditable = isEditable;
missionListView.heightofSuperView = (height- 49);
[missionListView configureGUI];
return missionListView;
}