Loading multiple tableviews in a UIView (UIView Controller) - ios

Question

I've been searching all throughout the internet for assistance, however there has been little to no solutions to my issue at hand. My project that im trying to get a gasp on is somewhat unique (UI is not exactly following the typical norms).
Current Development Enviroment:
xcode 4
storyboards instead of nibs
Below is a diagram of what i am trying to accomplish -- all within a UIView Controller:
UIView is the light grey background
UITableView 1 - this is a static (or it can be dynamic, thats another challenge) UITableview which will hold different numeric
values for calculation
UITableView 2 - this is a UITableview which will hold calculated results every time it is run.
UIImageView 1 - this is a calculated image example (I have that figured out)
Im sure experienced developers are fully aware of my issue, and or what im about to ask. I understand that a static UITableView is required to be in a tableview controller, but I need to display both the UItableView's at the same time which means it has to be within a UIView.
I can make the interface look the way I need it to through the IB however when trying to compile and build I receive the error that requires the UITableView's to be within a UITableViewController and not a UIView Controller. I have seen many examples using a master-detail layout, but the only stipulation is that this UITableview NEEDS to be displayed 100% of the time when in this view.
So basically, I am asking for direction... but a code example never hurt either! Thank you 100x's over!
-Jonathan

Answer 1

UITableViewController is just a specialized UIViewController specially designed to display full screen UITableViews. It is (quite) equivalent to use an UITableViewController subclass or an UIViewController <UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate> subclass to manage a tableview.
So even if UITableViewController has some more spiecialized behaviors (automatically creates the UITableView if it does not exists, scrolls it automatically to display the keyboard, sets itself as the delegate and dataSource of the unique UITableView it manages, etc), you can use a standard UIViewController to manage a UITableView and be its dataSource to fill it.
That's even a way to manage a tableview that is not taking the full screen (as UITableViewController expects its view property to directly be the UITableView it manages, not a subview of its main view or whatever, and thus expects the UITableView to take the whole screen, contrary to using an UIViewController that has an UITableView as a custom-sized subclass of its view)
So in your case, you can have an UIViewController that has two IBOutlets, one for each tableView, and that unique UIViewController can be the dataSource (and delegate) of both the UITableViews. That's not a problem. Just be careful then in your datasource methods to distinguish if you are returning data for the first or the second UITableView to feed the correct tables each time.
#interface MyViewController : UIViewController <UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate>
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableView* masterTableView;
#property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableView* detailsTableView;
#end
#implementation MyViewController
#synthesize masterTableView = _masterTableView;
#synthesize detailsTableView = _detailsTableView;
// Proper memory mgmt not shown here:
// - don't forget to set self.masterTableView and self.detailsTableView to nil in viewDidUnload
// - and to release _masterTableView and _detailsTableView in your dealloc method
-(UITableViewCell*)tableView:(UITableView*)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath
{
UITableViewCell* cell;
if (tableView == self.masterTableView)
{
static NSString* kMasterCellIdentifier = #"MasterCell";
cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:kMasterCellIdentifier];
if (!cell)
{
cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithReuseIdentiier:kMasterCellidentifier] autorelease];
// do some configuration common to all your master cells
}
// configure the rest of your cell for each property that is different from one cell to another
}
else if (tableView == self.detailsTableView)
{
// Do exactly the same principle, but for the cells of your "details" TableView
}
return cell;
}