UITableViewCell subview disappears when cell is selected

Question

UITableViewCell changes the background color of all sub views when cell is selected or highlighted ,You can Solve this problem by overriding Tableview cell's setSelected:animated and setHighlighted:animated and resetting view background color.

In Objective C :

- (void)setSelected:(BOOL)selected animated:(BOOL)animated {
   UIColor *color = self.yourView.backgroundColor;        
   [super setSelected:selected animated:animated];

    if (selected){
        self.yourView.backgroundColor = color;
    }
}

-(void)setHighlighted:(BOOL)highlighted animated:(BOOL)animated{
    UIColor *color = self.yourView.backgroundColor;        
    [super setHighlighted:highlighted animated:animated];

    if (highlighted){
        self.yourView.backgroundColor = color;
    }
}

In Swift 3.1 :

override func setSelected(_ selected: Bool, animated: Bool) {
    let color = yourView.backgroundColor         
    super.setSelected(selected, animated: animated)

    if selected {
        yourView.backgroundColor = color
    }
}

override func setHighlighted(_ highlighted: Bool, animated: Bool) {
    let color = yourView.backgroundColor
    super.setHighlighted(highlighted, animated: animated)

    if highlighted {
        yourView.backgroundColor = color
    }
}

It's because table view cell automatically changes background color of all views inside content view for highlighted state. You may consider subclassing UIView to draw your color or using UIImageView with custom 1x1 px stretched image.

Found a pretty elegant solution instead of messing with the tableViewCell selection/highlighting methods. You can create a subclass of UIView that ignores setting its background color to clear color.

Swift 3/4:

class NeverClearView: UIView {
    override var backgroundColor: UIColor? {
        didSet {
            if backgroundColor != nil && backgroundColor!.cgColor.alpha == 0 {
                backgroundColor = oldValue
            }
        }
    }
}

Swift 2:

class NeverClearView: UIView {
    override var backgroundColor: UIColor? {
        didSet {
            if CGColorGetAlpha(backgroundColor!.CGColor) != 0 {
                backgroundColor = oldValue
            }
        }
    }
}

Obj-C version:

@interface NeverClearView : UIView

@end

@implementation NeverClearView

- (void)setBackgroundColor:(UIColor *)backgroundColor {
    if (CGColorGetAlpha(backgroundColor.CGColor) != 0) {
        [super setBackgroundColor:backgroundColor];
    }
}

@end

For Swift 2.2 this works

cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyle.None

and reason is explained by @Andriy

It's because table view cell automatically changes background color of all views inside content view for highlighted state.

Another way to manage the problem is to fill the view with core-graphics gradient, like:

CAGradientLayer* gr = [CAGradientLayer layer];
gr.frame = mySubview.frame;
gr.colors = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                     (id)[[UIColor colorWithRed:0 green:0 blue:0 alpha:.5] CGColor]
                     ,(id)[[UIColor colorWithRed:0 green:0 blue:0 alpha:.5] CGColor]
                     , nil];

gr.locations = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:0],[NSNumber numberWithFloat:1],nil];

[mySubview.layer insertSublayer:gr atIndex:0];