UILabel size adjustment within a UITableViewCell loaded from Nib - ios

Question

UILabel within in a Cell contains a NSLocalizedString; varying from a few characters to a paragraph depending on language. The frame of the UILabel sometime does, and sometimes doesn't draw to fit the string length. I believe this is an issue with reuse, but I'm at a loss on how to fix it.
I have a series of five different UITableViewCell subclasses loaded from Nibs (project requirement) in viewDidLoad:
UINib *Cell1Nib = [UINib nibWithNibName:#"customCell1" bundle:nil];
[[self tableView] registerNib:Cell1Nib forCellReuseIdentifier:#"custCell1"];
UINib *Cell2Nib = [UINib nibWithNibName:#"customCell2" bundle:nil];
[[self tableView] registerNib:Cell2Nib forCellReuseIdentifier:#"custCell2"];
//etc.
I have a helper for getting height of the UILabel depending on the text used:
- (CGFloat)getTextHeight:(NSString *)locStr forLabelWidth:(CGFloat)w {
UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, w, 110)];
label.numberOfLines=0;
label.lineBreakMode=NSLineBreakByCharWrapping;
label.text = locStr; // highly variable & already localized
label.font = [UIFont preferredFontForTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleBody];
CGSize maxSize = CGSizeMake(w, CGFLOAT_MAX);
CGSize requiredSize = [label sizeThatFits:maxSize];
label = nil; // ARC paranoia
return requiredSize.height;
}
In heightForRowAtIndexPath I call getTextHeight:forLabelWidth:, using it to determin the cell height and storing the result into an NSMutableArray called, labelHeightforRow. So far, everything works great.
I create the table as such:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
UITableViewCell *cell = nil;
DLX_CellDescriptor *desc = [[DLX_CellDescriptor alloc] initWithRow:indexPath.row];
//DLX_CellDescriptor describes attributes for cell at index , essentially a list of strings
CGFloat helpTextHeight = [[labelHeightforRow objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] floatValue];
if ([desc.nibToUse caseInsensitiveCompare:#"custCell1"] == NSOrderedSame ) {
DLX_CustCell1 *currCell = (DLX_CustCell1 *)[self.tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:#"custCell1"];
CGPoint origin = currCell.theLabel.frame.origin;
CGFloat w = currCell.theLabel.frame.size.width;
currCell.theLabel.frame = CGRectMake(origin.x, origin.y, w, helpTextHeight);
currCell.theLabel.text = desc.localizedText;
currCell.theLabel.font = [UIFont preferredFontForTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleBody];
currCell.tag = indexPath.row;
cell = currCell;
} else if ([desc.nibToUse caseInsensitiveCompare:#"custCell2"] == NSOrderedSame ) {
DLX_CustCell2 *currCell = (DLX_CustCell2 *)[self.tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:#"custCell2"];
CGPoint origin = currCell.theLabel.frame.origin;
CGFloat w = currCell.theLabel.frame.size.width;
currCell.theLabel.frame = CGRectMake(origin.x, origin.y, w, helpTextHeight);
currCell.theLabel.text = desc.localizedText;
currCell.theLabel.font = [UIFont preferredFontForTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleBody];
currCell.tag = indexPath.row;
cell = currCell;
} // for about 26 rows of 5 different non-identical sytles
// simplified in this example
return cell;
}
This issue is that when the initial TableView is created, the UILabel is the height specified in the Nib: truncating extra long text and giving a large white space below (from the correct cell height adjustment). When the table is redrawn, the UILabel turns into the correct height specified in the code; showing the entire string. Then, if the cell is recreated; say, after it has scrolled off the screen and another of it's cell type has drawn, the long-text label is using the truncating height from the Nib again.
I tried putting layoutSubviews into the custom UITableViewCell (customCell1.m, for example) as such:
- (void)layoutSubviews {
NSInteger currCell = self.tag;
DLX_CellDescriptor *desc = [[DLX_CellDescriptor alloc] initWithRow:currCell];
CGPoint origin = theLabel.frame.origin;
CGSize size = theLabel.frame.size;
CGFloat textHeight = [self getTextHeight:desc.localizedText forLabelWidth:size.width];
theLabel.frame = CGRectMake(origin.x, origin.y, size.width, textHeight);
[super layoutSubviews];
}
But that had the effect of immutably ensuring that the height from the Nib was used; even though upon inspection, textheight was correct (and, for some languages, much larger then the Nib's height.)

Answer 1

Since that your cell is relatively simple, one easy way to solve your problem is don't use reuse. Just load the nib file from bundle. Delete those registerNib related code. And do it like this:
NSString *reuseIdentifier = #"DistrictCellReuseIdentifier";
DistrictCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"DistrictCell" owner:self options:nil][0];
}