Creating a UITableView for settings. - ios

Question

When it comes to write a table to present and organise the application settings area I feel always a bit "confused". I think that the better way would be to go with Static table, but I find extremely hard to customise it (especially because I can't customise grouped view cell).
So I often end up with a common table with a datasource. My doubts is related with cells that should directly presents the options information.
Let's say that I need 2 kind of cells.
A cell that shows a switch
A cell that shows the current value for the option
My doubts essentially are:
Which is the best way to setup the cells? Should I create a single subclass and just show or hide the label or the switch during the cellForItemAtIndex process?
Which is the best way to interact with the cells? When user changes the value of a switch... how can I set a reference to that switch and the right cell containing it?
What about the datasource? at the moment I implement a switch and depending on the required index I set up the cell
Can you kindly share some thoughts/examples of code about how you implement you settings?

Answer 1

This answer is based on the things i've done in my own app(s).
I wouldn't subclass UITableViewCell unless I wanted to do something "really" custom. I would just use the standard UITableViewCell, create a UISwitch control, or a label, depending on what you want to show, and add it as the cell's accessory. For instance:
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
static NSString * cellIdentifier = #"Cell";
UITableViewCell * cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellIdentifier];
if (!cell)
cell = [[TSOptionCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:cellIdentifier];
if (indexPath.row == 0) /* or whatever index you want to set the switch or label at */
{
UISwitch * switch = [[UISwitch alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
[switch addTarget:self action:#selector(toggleSwitch:) forControlEvents:(UIControlEventValueChanged | UIControlEventTouchDragInside)];
/* create your switch and add it's target and action (method that's called when it is toggled) */
// Set the value of the switch
switch = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] boolForKey:#"key"];
[cell setAccessoryView:switch];
}
}
The method that you added as the "action" for the switch above gets called when the user interacts with the switch. For instance, lower down in your code somewhere, you'd have this:
-(void)toggleSwitch:(id)sender
{
/* handle user interaction somehow */
}
This is what i currently do with my app in the app store. I use a switch statement to check the indexPath.row against the index of where I want the switch to be displayed, so I think this is appropriate.

Answer 2

Another way is to create two prototype cells in the storyboard, with different identifiers, and the in
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
you should use each cell at the index you need.
About the second issue in cellForRowAtIndexPath you should save the current state of the switch in an NSMutableArray.
you set a tag for each cell and in
- (void)toggleSwitch:(id)sender {
NSInteger currentIndex;
currentIndex = [sender superview].tag;
[yourMutableArray replaceObjectAtIndex:currentIndex withObject:![NSNumber numberWithBool:[yourMutableArray objectAtIndex:currentIndex]BoolValue];
}
of course, in your cellForRow you set the value of the array like:
[yourMutableArray insertObject:[NSNumber numberWithBool:[mySwitch isOn] atIndex:indexPath.row];
Hope this is what you were searching