UITableViewCell - Display Loader whilst pulling data - ios

Question

I have a fitness plan page with an app which is a UITableViewController with multiple custom uitableviewcells. It relies on a reasnably large data feed - I'd like to show a loader when accessing this page whilst the data feed is being pulled back from the server.
I have setup a custom uiTableviewCell containg a styled loader message / activity indicator and would like to show this on load - then when the data is available - refresh the tableview and deque the data into the relevant cells.
Currently I have the following method in my viewdidload method, which currently shows an alert if the feed hasn't completed its load-
[[RKObjectManager sharedManager].HTTPClient setReachabilityStatusChangeBlock:^(AFNetworkReachabilityStatus status) {
if(status == AFNetworkReachabilityStatusNotReachable)
{
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
initWithTitle:nil
message:#"There is no network connection!"
delegate:nil
cancelButtonTitle:#"Dismiss"
otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alert show];
}
else
{
i'd like to alter this to show the loader cell instead - then refresh the view once the data load is complete -
I've altered to the following -
[[RKObjectManager sharedManager].HTTPClient setReachabilityStatusChangeBlock:^(AFNetworkReachabilityStatus status) {
if(status == AFNetworkReachabilityStatusNotReachable)
{
_WoHpTV.tableFooterView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];
workoutBannerCell *cell = [_WoHpTV
dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:#"loaderCell" ];
}
else
{
so i've got a refernce to the custom cell in the above - but my question is how do I add it to my TableView?

Answer 1

i've got a refernce to the custom cell in the above - but my question
is how do I add it to my TableView?
You need to implement datasource methods of UITableView. Since you want to show loading indicators in each of the table cell you would need a temp data (You cannot load 0 cells in table view even to show loader you need some visible cells). In view did load create an array of temp objects and call reloadData of tableview.
for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
[_dataArray addObject:#{#"text":#"text_value"}];
_isDataLoaded = NO;
[_table reloadData];
Now this will populate your table with Temp data. Once HTTP call is done set that BOOL isDataLoaded to YES
Then in Data Source methods -
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
if (!_isDataLoaded)
return _dataArray.count; // No data return count for Temp Data
else
return _feedArray.count; // Return correct feed items count
}
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
MyCustomCell *cell = [_tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:#"cell_id"];
if (cell == nil)
// Initialise cell here
if (!_isDataLoaded) { // Data has not yet loaded. Set loaders
NSDictionary *data = [_dataArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
// set Cell properties here
} else {
// Fetch data from feed array
}
}
And in your question you are trying to detect if feed is loaded or not based on AFNetworkReachabilityStatusNotReachable. Which is actually incorrect, as this state indicates no internet connection. To track availability of data a simple BOOL as shown above will do.