Now that we have created a simple table view example we can look at extending our code to change the cell style. In so doing we will make use of the image and detailed text properties of the cell object to add images and subtitles to each row of the view. The first step is to add an image to the resources of our project. If you already have an image file that is suitable for this purpose feel free to use it in this example. Alternatively, we can pick up an image from the Mac OS X system on which Xcode is running. To add an image file to the application resources, right click on the Resources entry in the Groups and Files panel of the main Xcode project window. From the resulting menu, select the Add -> Existing Files… option. In the resulting file selection panel navigate to and select your pre-existing image file. Alternatively, enter apple.png into the search field and press Enter. The apple.png file should appear in the file list from where it can be selected:
Once the appropriate image file has been selected, click on the Add button to add the image to the resources. On the following panel accept the default settings and click Add once again.
Now that the image is included in the project resources it is time to add some code to the cellForRowAtIndexPath method in the TableExampleViewCrontoller.m file. All we need to do in this file is add some code to create a UIImage object from the image file and assign it to the imageView property of the cell object. With these changes made, the method should read as follows:
// Customize the appearance of table view cells.
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
}
// Configure the cell.
UIImage *cellImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"apple.png"];
cell.imageView.image = cellImage;
cell.textLabel.text = [self.colorNames objectAtIndex: [indexPath row]];
return cell;
}
Next, we want to add a subtitle to the text of each cell. This is achieved by assigning a string to the cell object’s detailTextLabel text property. Note also that the code currently selects the UITableViewCellStyleDefault cell style which does not display the detailText. It will also be necessary, therefore to change the cell style to UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle . With all of these changes implemented, the method now reads as follows:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
}
// Configure the cell.
UIImage *cellImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"apple.png"];
cell.imageView.image = cellImage;
NSString *colorString = [self.colorNames objectAtIndex: [indexPath row]];
cell.textLabel.text = colorString;
NSString *subtitle = [NSString stringWithString: @"All about the color "];
subtitle = [subtitle stringByAppendingFormat:colorString];
cell.detailTextLabel.text = subtitle;
return cell;
}
Once the changes have been made to the code, build and run the application. When the simulator starts up the table view should appear with images and subtitles as shown in the following figure:
References
