Creating custom UITableViewCell's within a Storyboard

Question

Wanting to create a static menu (IOS 5) and attempting to create custom cells within the storyboard to then load onto the grouped tableview.

I've created the outlet

@property(nonatomic,strong) IBOutlet UITableViewCell *labelCell;

The ViewController class is set to the proper TableViewController and I've connected the custom cell to this outlet.

I also have the delegate and datasource set up.

I've got

-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath   *)indexPath
{
  return self.labelCell;
}

I'm sure there is a ton wrong with this, but I'm just trying to display one cell and go from there. There does not seem to be any examples of doing custom cells within the IB through the storyboard. I can still use the old way of creating a xib file and loading it in the mainBundle but I just want to stay up to date I guess.

but with what I have above i get a crash when I load this view controller. SIGABRT

Answer 1

Here is what I've learned about how you get cells for your table when using the storyboard. When you drag a UITableView into your view, it comes with a prototype cell already set as a subview. To use this prototype cell, set a unique reuse identifier in the attributes inspector, and then use the same identifier to dequeue the cell in your cellForRowAtIndexPath: method. I leave out the code for creating a cell from scratch if the dequeue call returns nil; I don't think it can happen. So just dequeue the cell, configure it with the usual UITableViewCell methods, and return it.

But you can also create custom subclasses of UITableViewCell. Just set the class name in the storyboard's class identity inspector, and drag whatever elements you want from the Objects palette into your cell. Then create IBOutlet properties for them in your subclass's code files, and hook them up to the cell in the storyboard in the usual way. This is so much better than having to do it all in code!

And finally, you can have more than one kind of cell in your table. Just drag UITableViewCell objects from the palette into the table, and give each one a unique reuse identifier in the attributes inspector. In your cellForRowAtIndexPath: method, choose the type of each cell and you can have a very flexible table view.