UIImageView IBOutlet Properties for CollectionView Cells Not Loading - ios

Question

I have a UITableView and UICollectionView loading the same content, but, even though their protocol methods are defined almost identically, the collection view is giving me an empty view, whereas, the table view displays content. So that you understand the context of this question, I will cover what goes on before loading content on both views:
I get back an image from -imageWithData and store it in a dictionary
This dictionary is then accessed by the TableViewController class as well as the CollectionViewController class and implemented as such:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
// Configure the cell...
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:#"User ID" forIndexPath:indexPath];
//setting UI
NSString *milesFrom = self.streamItems[indexPath.row][#"MilesAway"];
cell.textLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#, Distance Away: %#", self.streamItems[indexPath.row][#"UserName"], milesFrom];
UIImage *photo = [[UIImage alloc]init];
photo = self.streamItems[indexPath.row][#"ThumbnailPhoto"];
cell.imageView.image = photo;
return cell;
}
This part works just as I need it to, but the collection view does not:
- (UICollectionViewCell *)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView cellForItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *identifier = #"MyCell";
CellViewController *cell = [collectionView dequeueReusableCellWithReuseIdentifier:identifier forIndexPath:indexPath];
UIImage *imageReturned = [[UIImage alloc]initWithCIImage: self.streamItems[indexPath.row][#"ThumbnailPhoto"]];
cell.imageOfCell.image = imageReturned;
[cell.imageOfCell sizeToFit];
return cell;
}
This CellViewController Class has the IBOutlet 'imageOfCell' property. This property references an Image View object that I dragged on top of the cell ("MyCell") that is inside of my collection view. The collection view, as I said, gives me a blank view with no content. In debugging, I saw that both the 'photo' instance and 'ImageReturned' instance had the same exact values. For this reason, I have no idea why the collection view does not load the images but the table view does. In case it has anything to do with the way I load the collection view, I have included my -viewDidLoad method definition:
#implementation StreamCollectionViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
self.collectionView.delegate = self;
self.collectionView.dataSource = self;
[self.collectionView registerClass: [CellViewController class]forCellWithReuseIdentifier:#"MyCell"];
UICollectionViewFlowLayout *flow = [[UICollectionViewFlowLayout alloc]init];
[flow setScrollDirection:UICollectionViewScrollDirectionVertical];
[self.collectionView setCollectionViewLayout:flow];
//create object to deal with network requests
StreamController *networkRequester = [[StreamController alloc]init];
[networkRequester getFeedWithCompletion:^(NSMutableArray *items, NSError *error) {
if (!error) {
self.streamItems = items;
[self.collectionView reloadData];
}
else{
NSLog(#"Error getting streamItems: %#", error);
}
}];
// Uncomment the following line to preserve selection between presentations
// self.clearsSelectionOnViewWillAppear = NO;
// Register cell classes
// [self.collectionView registerClass:[UICollectionViewCell class] forCellWithReuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}
I am fairly new to using the collection view so I wouldn't be surprised if it's something relatively small that I am missing. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

In delegate of uicollectionView cellforrowatindexpath
After
CellViewController *cell = [collectionView dequeueReusableCellWithReuseIdentifier:identifier forIndexPath:indexPath];
Add this
if(cell == nil)
cell = [[CellViewController alloc]init];