ios steps to create custom UITableViewCell with xib file

Question

I need to create my own UITableViewCell using the xib file, to draw the graphic interface... what are the right steps to create my new class and to use into my UITableView?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

In iOS5 you'll want to use the new:

registerNib:forCellReuseIdentifier:

Which basically does the same thing...

Answer 2

Personally I think that both suggested tutorials have a big flaw when it comes to reuseIdentifier. If you forget to assign it in interface builder or misspell it, you will load the nib each and every time cellForRowAtIndexPath gets called.

Jeff LaMarche writes about this and how to fix it in this blog post. Apart from reuseIdentifier he uses the same approach as in the apple documentation on Loading Custom Table-View Cells From Nib Files.

After having read all these articles I came up with following code:

Edit: If you are targeting iOS 5.0 and higher you'll want to stick with Duane Fields' answer

@interface CustomCellWithXib : UITableViewCell  + (NSString *)reuseIdentifier; - (id)initWithOwner:(id)owner;  @end  @implementation CustomCellWithXib  + (UINib*)nib {     // singleton implementation to get a UINib object     static dispatch_once_t pred = 0;     __strong static UINib* _sharedNibObject = nil;     dispatch_once(&pred, ^{         _sharedNibObject = [UINib nibWithNibName:NSStringFromClass([self class]) bundle:nil];     });     return _sharedNibObject; }  - (NSString *)reuseIdentifier {     return [[self class] reuseIdentifier]; }  + (NSString *)reuseIdentifier {     // return any identifier you like, in this case the class name     return NSStringFromClass([self class]); }  - (id)initWithOwner:(id)owner {     return [[[[self class] nib] instantiateWithOwner:owner options:nil] objectAtIndex:0]; }  @end 

UINib (available in iOS 4.0 and later) is used here as a singleton, because although the reuseIdentifier is used, the cell still gets re-initialized about 10 times or so. Now cellForRowAtIndexPath looks like this:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {     CustomCellWithXib *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:[CustomCellWithXib reuseIdentifier]];     if (cell == nil) {         cell = [[CustomCellWithXib alloc] initWithOwner:self];     }      // do additional cell configuration      return cell; }