UILabel upon a few UITableViewCells - ios

Question

Am I able to create a UILabel that is layouted upon many UITableViewCells?
I'm trying to make something like (that is just one section of my UITableView, each section can have one or more rows):
---------------------------------------------
| Multi-lined label | row1 values |
| with some useless | row2 values |
| text | row3 values |
---------------------------------------------
I managed to create a UILabel (in the first row of a section) that is multi-lined and is not clipping to bounds. That works really well (it was a bit tricky to count each sections row heights, but doable) besides one case: when I'm scrolling UITableView from bottom to top - UITableView renders last row (without UILabel) so it has "no evidence" of having UILabel (because it is maintained in the first row of section). Can I force some kind of relayouting first cell in section? I tried reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:withRowAnimation: with first row in each section whenever I layouted not first cell in section but it gave me layouting errors that I really do not understand. Or maybe there is another idea to do so?
-- EDITED
To be clear: I have a custom UITableViewCell with an IB view, it has a few labels that each row consist of and a label named labelName that I want to be "multi-lined" along rows in that section. LabelName.text is empty for each row besides first one in each section.
I am adding somescreenshots:
Good screenshot - when I am scrolling to bottom I'm getting proper effect:
Bad screenshot - when I am scrolling up, UITableView renders last row of section firstly, and afterwards renders upper rows - that gives effect of cut label (because multi-line label is in the first row)
I am not sure if code here will add anything to question - it is rather simple and almost whole logic is in tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath. I can only present how do I create custom UITableViewCell:
CustomTableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:[CustomTableViewCell reuseIdentifier]];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[CustomTableViewCell alloc] initWithOwner:self];
cell.clipsToBounds = NO;
cell.labelName.clipsToBounds = NO;
cell.contentView.superview.clipsToBounds = NO;
}
-- EDIT 2
Here is most of the code:
- (void) reloadData
{
NSUInteger index = 0;
for (NSDictionary *object in self.list) {
CGFloat height = [[object objectForKey:#"name"] sizeWithFont:self.labelFont constrainedToSize:self.labelSize].height;
[self.labelHeights addObject:NSNumberFloat(ceilf(height))];
index++;
}
[self.tableView reloadData];
}
- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
NSDictionary *object = [self.list objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
CGFloat height = [[self.labelHeights objectAtIndex:indexPath.section] floatValue];
NSUInteger count = [[object objectForKey:#"list"] count];
CGFloat cellHeight = 30.f;
if((indexPath.row + 1) == count){
cellHeight = MAX(8.f + height - 30.f * indexPath.row, 30.f);
}
return cellHeight;
}
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
{
return [self.list count];
}
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
return [[[self.list objectAtIndex:section] objectForKey:#"list"] count];
}
- (UITableViewCell *) tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
NSDictionary *person = [self.list objectAtIndex:indexPath.section];
NSDictionary *object = [[person objectForKey:#"list"] objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
CustomTableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:[CustomTableViewCell reuseIdentifier]];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[CustomTableViewCell alloc] initWithOwner:self];
cell.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
cell.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
cell.clipsToBounds = NO;
cell.labelName.clipsToBounds = NO;
[cell.contentView.superview setClipsToBounds:NO];
}
if(indexPath.row == 0){
cell.labelName.text = [person objectForKey:#"name"];
CGFloat height = [[self.labelHeights objectAtIndex:indexPath.section] floatValue];
cell.labelName.numberOfLines = (int)(height / self.fontSizeHeight);
cell.labelName.frame = CGRectChangeHeight(cell.labelName.frame, height);
}
else{
cell.labelName.text = #"";
}
CGFloat cellHeight = [self tableView:self.tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
cell.borderTop.hidden = YES;
cell.borderBottom.hidden = YES;
cell.borderBottomSmall.hidden = NO;
if(indexPath.row == 0){
cell.borderTop.hidden = NO;
}
if(indexPath.row + 1 == [[person objectForKey:#"list"] count]){
cell.borderBottom.hidden = NO;
cell.borderBottom.frame = CGRectChangeY(cell.borderBottom.frame, cellHeight - 1.f);
cell.borderBottomSmall.hidden = YES;
}
cell.labelDate.text = [object objectForKey:#"date"];
cell.labelPremium.text = [[object objectForKey:#"premium"];
return cell;
}
-- PARTIAL ANSWER
I managed to create a hack, that makes multi-line UILabel visibile when scrolling bottom to up at some point:
- (void) scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView
{
NSArray *cells = [self.tableView visibleCells];
UITableViewCell *cell = [cells objectAtIndex:0];
[cell.superview bringSubviewToFront:cell];
}
I noticed that the part of the UILabel is covered by a row thats below of the UILabels row and that hack makes it would be properly displayed. But it has a drawback, when scrolling slowly from bottom to top it generates a flicker when label is created (part of it should be visible before real creation of UILabel).

Answer 1

Up mentioned answers are not solutions, but "hacks".
In the cell == nil block should be only the initialization.
You should not add any subviews in cell in cellForRowAtIndexPath.
The reason is simple: I will reuse a cell with some labels already added and add a new label.
Either use the default cell.textLabel, either create a subclass for UITableViewCell, with a
-(void)setData:(dictionary or string)object;
and in implementation just set the proper data to proper UI controls.
Add/create controls either in init method in the subclass, or in IB/Storyboard.
Call the dictionary or string should be picked in correspondence to indexPath, so you will always get proper data for proper cell at proper indexPath.

Answer 2

Try This
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
static NSString *cellId = #"cellId";
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellId];
if (cell==nil)
{
cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:cellId];
}
for (UIView *subview in [cell.contentView subviews]) {
[subview removeFromSuperview];
}
/// your UI on cell goes here
return cell;
}