parse not loading first images in tableview - ios

Question

I am using parse to store and retrieve some data, which I then load into a UITableview, each cell contains some text and image, however when I open my tableview, any cells in the view do not show images until I scroll them out of view and back into view (I guess this is calling cellForRowAtIndexPath). Is there a way to check when all images are downloaded and then reload the tableview?
func loadData(){
self.data.removeAllObjects()
var query = PFQuery(className:"Tanks")
query.orderByAscending("createdAt")
query.findObjectsInBackgroundWithBlock {
(objects: [AnyObject]!, error: NSError!) -> Void in
if error == nil {
// The find succeeded.
for object in objects {
self.data.addObject(object)
}
} else {
// Log details of the failure
NSLog("Error: %# %#", error, error.userInfo!)
}
self.tableView.reloadData()
}
}
override func tableView(tableView: UITableView?, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath?) -> UITableViewCell {
self.cell = tableView!.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("Cell", forIndexPath: indexPath!) as TankTableViewCell // let cell:TankTableViewCell
let item:PFObject = self.data.objectAtIndex(indexPath!.row) as PFObject
self.cell.productName.alpha = 1.0
self.cell.companyName.alpha = 1.0
self.cell.reviewTv.alpha = 1.0
self.rating = item.objectForKey("rating") as NSNumber
cell.productName.text = item.objectForKey("prodName") as? String
cell.companyName.text = item.objectForKey("compName") as? String
self.cell.reviewTv.text = item.objectForKey("review") as? String
let userImageFile = item.objectForKey("image") as PFFile
userImageFile.getDataInBackgroundWithBlock({
(imageData: NSData!, error: NSError!) -> Void in
if (error == nil) {
let image = UIImage(data:imageData)
self.cell.productImage.image = image
}
}, progressBlock: {
(percentDone: CInt) -> Void in
if percentDone == 100{
}
})
self.setStars(self.rating)
// Configure the cell...
UIView.animateWithDuration(0.5, animations: {
self.cell.productName.alpha = 1.0
self.cell.companyName.alpha = 1.0
self.cell.reviewTv.alpha = 1.0
self.cell.reviewTv.scrollRangeToVisible(0)
})
return cell
}

Answer 1

The problem is that you use self.cell and that you change that reference each time a cell is returned. So, when the images are loaded they are all set into the last cell to be returned, which probably isn't on screen (or at least not fully).
Really you should be capturing the cell in the completion block of the image download (and checking that the cell is still linked to the same index path).
Also, you should cache the downloaded images so you don't always download the data / recreate the image.

Answer 2

You could set up a delegate method in your UITableViewController that gets called by another controller class that fetches the images. I doubt that's what you want to do though.
What you should do is initialize the cells with a default image, and have the cell controller itself go and fetch the image in the background, and update its UIImageView when the fetch completes. You definitely don't want to wait around for all images to load before reloading the table because a.) that takes a long time, and b.) what if one fails or times out?
Once the cell has loaded its image, if it is swapped out by the recycler and swapped back in, you can simply get the cached image by calling getData instead of getDataInBackground as long as isDataAvailable is true.

Answer 3

After your line:
self.cell.productImage.image = image
Try Adding:
cell.layoutSubviews() or self.cell.layoutSubviews()
It should render the subview, or your image in this case, on the first table view.