UITableView set to static cells. Is it possible to hide some of the cells programmatically?

Question

To hide static cells in UITable:

1. Add this method:

In your UITableView controller delegate class:

Objective-C:

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    UITableViewCell* cell = [super tableView:tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];

    if(cell == self.cellYouWantToHide)
        return 0; //set the hidden cell's height to 0

    return [super tableView:tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
}

Swift:

override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, heightForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> CGFloat {
    var cell = super.tableView(tableView, cellForRowAtIndexPath: indexPath)

    if cell == self.cellYouWantToHide {
        return 0
    }

    return super.tableView(tableView, heightForRowAtIndexPath: indexPath)
}

This method will get called for each cell in the UITable. Once it calls it for the cell you want to hide, we set its height to 0. We identify the target cell by creating an outlet for it:

2. In the designer, create an outlet for the cell(s) you want to hide. The outlet for one such cell is called "cellYouWantToHide" above.
3. Check "Clip Subviews" in the IB for the cells you want to hide. The cells you are hiding need to have ClipToBounds = YES. Otherwise the text will pile up in the UITableView.

You are looking for this solution :

StaticDataTableViewController 2.0

https://github.com/xelvenone/StaticDataTableViewController

which can show/hide/reload any static cell(s) with or without animation!

[self cell:self.outletToMyStaticCell1 setHidden:hide]; 
[self cell:self.outletToMyStaticCell2 setHidden:hide]; 
[self reloadDataAnimated:YES];

Note to always use only (reloadDataAnimated:YES/NO) (dont call [self.tableView reloadData] directly)

This doesn't use the hacky solution with setting height to 0 and allows you to animate the change and hide whole sections

The best way is as described in the following blog http://ali-reynolds.com/2013/06/29/hide-cells-in-static-table-view/

Design your static table view as normal in interface builder – complete with all potentially hidden cells. But there is one thing you must do for every potential cell that you want to hide – check the “Clip subviews” property of the cell, otherwise the content of the cell doesn’t disappear when you try and hide it (by shrinking it’s height – more later).

SO – you have a switch in a cell and the switch is supposed to hide and show some static cells. Hook it up to an IBAction and in there do this:

[self.tableView beginUpdates];
[self.tableView endUpdates];

That gives you nice animations for the cells appearing and disappearing. Now implement the following table view delegate method:

- (float)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    if (indexPath.section == 1 && indexPath.row == 1) { // This is the cell to hide - change as you need
    // Show or hide cell
        if (self.mySwitch.on) {
            return 44; // Show the cell - adjust the height as you need
        } else {
            return 0; // Hide the cell
        }
   }
   return 44;
}

And that’s it. Flip the switch and the cell hides and reappears with a nice, smooth animation.

My solution goes into a similar direction as Gareth, though I do some things differently.

Here goes:

1. Hide the cells

There is no way to directly hide the cells. UITableViewController is the data source which provides the static cells, and currently there is no way to tell it "don't provide cell x". So we have to provide our own data source, which delegates to the UITableViewController in order to get the static cells.

Easiest is to subclass UITableViewController, and override all methods which need to behave differently when hiding cells.

In the simplest case (single section table, all cells have the same height), this would go like this:

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section    
{
    return [super tableView:tableView numberOfRowsInSection:section] - numberOfCellsHidden;
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    // Recalculate indexPath based on hidden cells
    indexPath = [self offsetIndexPath:indexPath];

    return [super tableView:tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
}

- (NSIndexPath*)offsetIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath
{
    int offsetSection = indexPath.section; // Also offset section if you intend to hide whole sections
    int numberOfCellsHiddenAbove = ... // Calculate how many cells are hidden above the given indexPath.row
    int offsetRow = indexPath.row + numberOfCellsHiddenAbove;

    return [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:offsetRow inSection:offsetSection];
}

If your table has multiple sections, or the cells have differing heights, you need to override more methods. The same principle applies here: You need to offset indexPath, section and row before delegating to super.

Also keep in mind that the indexPath parameter for methods like didSelectRowAtIndexPath: will be different for the same cell, depending on state (i.e. the number of cells hidden). So it is probably a good idea to always offset any indexPath parameter and work with these values.

2. Animate the change

As Gareth already stated, you get major glitches if you animate changes using reloadSections:withRowAnimation: method.

I found out that if you call reloadData: immediately afterwards, the animation is much improved (only minor glitches left). The table is displayed correctly after the animation.

So what I am doing is:

- (void)changeState
{
     // Change state so cells are hidden/unhidden
     ...

    // Reload all sections
    NSIndexSet* reloadSet = [NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndexesInRange:NSMakeRange(0, [self numberOfSectionsInTableView:tableView])];

    [tableView reloadSections:reloadSet withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationAutomatic];
    [tableView reloadData];
}