HVTableView

UITableView with expand/collapse feature

Developer

• Hamidreza Vakilian

Contributors

• Gavy Aggarwal (@gavyaggarwal) -- Storyboard Support
• Creatd Software (@creatd) --Added collapseExpandedCells method

Summary

This is a subclass of UITableView with expand/collapse feature that comes useful in many scenarios. The developer can save a lot of time using an expand/collapse tableView instead of creating a detail viewController for each cell. Consequently the details of each cell can be displayed right on the same table without switching to another view.

Usage

Create a UITableView in Storyboard or your nib file and change its class to HVTableView. In the attributes inspector you can set expandOnlyOneCell and enableAutoScroll properties. Also, in the storyboard connect HVTableViewDelegate and HVTableViewDataSource to the file owner.

expandOnlyOneCell and enableAutoScroll description:

expandOnlyOneCell==TRUE: Just one cell will be expanded at a time.
expandOnlyOneCell==FALSE: multiple cells can be expanded at a time

enableAutoScroll==TRUE: when the user touches a cell, the HVTableView will automatically scroll to it
enableAutoScroll==FALSE: when the user touches a cell, the HVTableView won't scroll.

Your viewController must conform to HVTableViewDelegate and HVTableViewDataSource protocols. Like UITableView you implement these familiar delegate functions:

-(NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
-(NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section

We added a boolean parameter the heightForRowAtIndexPath function so you will have to calculate different values for expand and collapse states.

-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath isExpanded:(BOOL)isExpanded
(isExpanded==TRUE: return the size of the cell in expanded state)
(isExpanded==FALSE: return the size of the cell in collapsed (initial) state)

We also added a boolean parameter to the cellForRowAtIndexPath function too. update the cell's content respecting it's state (isExpanded):

-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath isExpanded:(BOOL)isExpanded

Now the interesting functions are as follows. Implement tableView:collapseCell:withIndexPath and it will be fired when a cell is going to expand. You can perform your drawings, animations, etc. in this delegate method:

-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView collapseCell: (UITableViewCell*)cell withIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*) indexPath;

The counterpart comes here. It will be fired when a cell is going to collapse. You can perform your drawings, animations, etc. or clearing up the cell in this function:

-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView expandCell: (UITableViewCell*)cell withIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*) indexPath;

• IMPORTANT: there are some delegate functions from UITableViewDelegate that we have commented their proxy in HVTableView.m. If you need to implement those on your viewController, go to HVTableView.m and uncomment those delegate methods. If you don't uncomment them; your delegate methods won't fire up.

Programatically Expand/Collapse/Toggle Cells

These methods are added to the HVTableView:

-(void)toggleCellAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath; // toggles between collapsed and expanded state
-(void)expandCellAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath; // expands cell if it’s collapsed
-(void)collapseCellAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath*)indexPath; // collapses the cell if it’s expanded

Example

Suppose you have an instance of HVTableView names tableView. To expand this cell programatically use this method:

[self.table expandCellAtIndexPath:[NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:0 inSection:0]];

For toggling and collapsing the cells, the usage is pretty same.

Pros

If you’re looking for a straight forward easy-to-setup library for expandable views, HVTableView is your choice. It provides an acceptable performance which is sufficient for using in regular projects.

Cons

Expanding a UITableViewCell requires a call to reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:withRowAnimation: which in turn forces the TableView to reload the cell, thereafter we will change the height for the corresponding cell. That’s why a slight flashing occurs when the cell is animating which is unpreventable due to UITableView limitations. If you’re looking for a more-professional expandable view, we suggest HyperTreeView, a subclass of UIScrollView which provides super-smooth expansion/collapse for nodes while it supports hierarchical structures.

Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Installation

HVTableView is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "HVTableView"

Author

Innovian

License

HVTableView is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.