Capture cell being pressed without didSelectRowAtIndexPath - ios

Question

I have the following UITableViewCell (well, subclassed).
With didSelectRowAtIndexPath it is possible to capture that a cell has been selected in UITableViewController. My problem occurs due to the fact that directly pressing Choose User bypasses the selection of the cell.
How could I allow my UITableViewController to be aware that UITableViewCell foo has been pressed even if the user immediately hits Choose User?
N.B. I don't need the Selection capability per se, this was just by method of knowing that a user had tapped within a cell area.

Answer 1

You could just call the method directly. If we say that for each Choose User button we are setting the row number as the tag and assuming that you don't have sections so everything will happen in section 0 we could do.
- (void)hitChooseUser:(id)sender
{
// Do whatever you want for when a user hits the `Choose User` button
// Code......
// Then do this at the end or whenever you want to do it.
NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:[sender tag] inSection:0];
// Also assuming you have created you have created you UITableView correctly.
[self tableView:myTableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
}
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
// Do whatever it is you want.
}
I also found this link that may help you Manually call didSelectRowatIndexPath
You could also disable the user interaction with the cell itself by setting userInteractionEnabled: to NO for each cell in cellForRowAtIndexPath: so didSelectRowAtIndexPath: will only get called when you want to call it manually.

Answer 2

Do not call didSelectRowAtIndexPath: It is a UITableViewDelegate method and, where possible, should be used as such (meaning let the UITableView send messages to it). In addition, it creates an unnecessary dependency on UITableView implementation.
That being said, in order to achieve shared behavior that is performed either on button click, or on row selection, refactor it out into a common method that is not coupled with UITableViewDelegate
For example:
-(void)doSomethingCommon {
//do shared code here
}
-(void)chooseUserButtonPressed:(id)sender {
[self doSomethingCommon];
}
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
[self doSomethingCommon];
}
And if your UITableView shows more than one of these rows, for which you depend on knowing which corresponding model object is related to the cell, than you can use the tag property on UIView subclasses (usually something in your cell) to mark the row that the object is shown in.