Some rows never have UIButtons when UITableView is created - ios

Question

I have a UITableView that is never consistent. This table view has 2 sections.
I have created 2 UIButtons, they both are practically the same image, but one is grey and one is red.
Every row in the UITableView is supposed to have the grey button when the UITableView first loads, and then if a user taps a button then it switches to the red version of the button.
For some reason, about 80% of the time when I load the view controller with this UITableView on my iPhone, the first 2 rows in the first section will not have a button. What's weird is if I tap my finger where the button is supposed to be 2 things happen:
The functionality attached to the button works and NSLogs in the console in xcode.
The red button appears.
So it's like the grey button is there, it's just invisible. This doesn't work because if a user sees 2 rows without a button they are going to think something is broken or that they can't tap on that row.
Also, if I scroll to the very bottom of my UITableView, and then scroll back up again, the invisible grey buttons will magically appear like they were there the whole time.
Here are the first 3 method implementations that are involved in creating my UITableView:
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
return 2 ;
}
-(NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
if(section == 0)
return [self.potentiaFriendsInParseFirstNamesArray count];
if(section == 1)
return [self.potentiaFriendsNotInParseFirstNamesArray count];
else return 0;
}
- (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
if(section == 0)
return #"Friends Using The App";
if(section == 1)
return #"Send to Contact";
else return #"nil";
}
And then here is my cellForRowAtIndexPath method implementation which does most of the work in creating the UITableView and which actually creates the UIButton settings for each row. The if else statement really has 2 sets of nearly identical code, the only difference is one is for section 1 of the table view and the other is for section 2:
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *cellIdentifier = #"SettingsCell";
UITableViewCell *cell = [self.tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellIdentifier];
if (indexPath.section == 0) {
NSString *firstNameForTableView = [self.potentiaFriendsInParseFirstNamesArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
PFUser *user = [self.allUsersInParse objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
UIImage *addUserButtonImage = [UIImage imageNamed:#"SliderThumb-Normal-g"];
UIImage *addUserButtonImageHighlighted = [UIImage imageNamed:#"SliderThumb-Normal"];
UIButton *addUserButton = [[UIButton alloc]init];
addUserButton.frame = CGRectMake(237, -10, 64, 64);
[addUserButton setImage:addUserButtonImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[addUserButton setImage:addUserButtonImageHighlighted forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];
[addUserButton setImage:addUserButtonImageHighlighted forState:UIControlStateSelected];
[addUserButton addTarget:self action:#selector(handleTouchUpInside:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
addUserButton.tag = indexPath.row;
[cell.textLabel setText:firstNameForTableView];
[cell.detailTextLabel setText:user.username];
[cell.contentView addSubview:addUserButton];
} else {
NSString *firstNameForTableView2 = [self.potentiaFriendsNotInParseFirstNamesArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
NSString *userNameForTableView2 = [self.potentiaFriendsPhoneNumberArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
UIImage *addFriendButtonImage = [UIImage imageNamed:#"SliderThumb-Normal-G"];
UIImage *addFriendButtonImageHighlighted = [UIImage imageNamed:#"SliderThumb-Normal"];
UIButton *addFriendButton = [[UIButton alloc]init];
addFriendButton.frame = CGRectMake(237, -10, 64, 64);
[addFriendButton setImage:addFriendButtonImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[addFriendButton setImage:addFriendButtonImageHighlighted forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];
[addFriendButton setImage:addFriendButtonImageHighlighted forState:UIControlStateSelected];
[addFriendButton addTarget:self action:#selector(handleTouchUpInsideForNonUsers:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
addFriendButton.tag = indexPath.row;
[cell.textLabel setText:firstNameForTableView2];
[cell.detailTextLabel setText:userNameForTableView2];
[cell.contentView addSubview:addFriendButton];
}
return cell;
}
I have not included the full method implementations that these 2 statements trigger because they only handle the functionality attached to each button, and most likely have nothing to do with this issue, but I will post them here anyways. These 2 statements can be found in the if else for cellForRowAtIndexPath and handle the touch events for the 2 sections of the table view:
[addFriendButton addTarget:self action:#selector(handleTouchUpInsideForNonUsers:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
[addFriendButton addTarget:self action:#selector(handleTouchUpInside:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

Answer 1

I see the pattern of trying to set up a custom UITableViewCell from within tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: quite a lot. The trouble is that I believe it to be the wrong place to do it. If you're really only using a built-in UITableViewCell, then it's the right place; for custom cells, it's not.
I'd recommend making a UITableViewCell subclass with a "setup" method that takes an object and uses that object to set up the cell's UI.
For instance, take section 0 from your UITableView. I'd do something like this:
#interface UserTableViewCell : UITableViewCell
// properties to IBOutlet connections for UI setup
- (void)setupWithUser:(PFUser *)user;
#end
#implementation UserTableViewCell
- (void)setupWithUser:(PFUser *)user {
// Set up your UI with properties from 'user'
}
- (IBAction)buttonPressed:(UIButton *)sender {
// Respond to the button press
}
This way, you can set up the cell's layout as well as images for the button in IB, rather than code. This also makes the code a lot easier to read (and re-read 6 months later!).
Also, unless the 2 cells (section 0 and section 1) are really interchangeable, I'd recommend two different subclasses of UITableViewCell to give you greater control, rather than trying to force one to act like the other or vice versa. Then, you simply assign different identifiers and recycle the appropriate type.