Why does modally presenting a view controller break Auto Layout in my table view?

Question

Sample Project: http://cl.ly/1o2K2m2r262q

I have a UITableView with custom cells that have their height auto-calculated from Auto Layout. The custom cells has three labels within it, each positioned with vertical spacing between one another and the content view, and pushed away from the left side.

It works great when I input the data and it loads.

However when I modally present a view controller from the view controller hosting the table view, I notice it completely breaks Auto Layout as I return to the original view controller.

What would cause this? I populate the data into a simple array that acts as the model for the table view's data source, then it's just Auto Layout. It's such a simple project that I'm confused where it would be messing up.

Addition: I appreciate rdelmar's answer, but I simply can't believe that there's not a single app shipped right now that takes advantage of this dynamic cell feature of iOS 8 without making terribly jumpy table views. It would be incredibly noticeable. Someone must have figured out a way to make this work, otherwise they never would have shipped it.

Answer 1

You have several problems. In the storyboard, there is a red warning arrow in the scene list. You shouldn't ignore that. Click on it and make the changes it suggests (do the compression resistance values first, and I think the content hugging one goes away on its own).

In MasterViewController's viewDidLoad, add these two lines that you need for self-sizing cells,

self.tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 120
self.tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension // you may not need this one, I think it might be the default now

Finally, I've found that when I make the cell in the storyboard (as opposed to in code), I need to add the following method to the cell class, so the layout happens right away (otherwise it doesn't layout properly until you scroll or rotate),

override func didMoveToSuperview() {
        self.layoutIfNeeded()
    }