How to populate custom cell while using UISearchBar in storyboard

Question

I'm using storyboard for a tableview with custom cells. I created custom cells in storyboard without any additional classes for it. Everything works fine when I'm not using the UISearch bar, But when I want to create the custom cell for UISearchBarController tableview I don't know how can I do it. Hers is my custom cell in storyboard,

with cellIdentifier = "SelectionCell"

and I'm not using any custom class.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"SelectionCell";
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil)  {
    NSArray *nibs = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:CellIdentifier owner:self options:nil];
    cell = [nibs objectAtIndex:0];
}

the code crashes: 'Could not load NIB in bundle:'

I don't have a NIB file for my custom cell, and I don't have any custom UITableViewCell class to use alloc/init method like this:

cell = [[myCustomCellClass alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

how can I create the cell?

Answer 1

It seems it can't be done without a custom cell class. Because we don’t have a storyboard prototype cell to manipulate graphically for the filtered table view, we have to programmatically create the cells. And for that we need a custom cell class and with initWithStyle: method in the .m file as follows. So I created a class called SelectionCell subclass of UITableViewCell, and in IB assigned custom cell class to SelectionCell class and create IBOutlet for all UI controls in my custom cell into SelectionCell.h file

@interface SelectionCell : UITableViewCell{

}
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIImageView *contactPictureID;
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UILabel *contactName;
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UILabel *emailAddress;
@property (strong, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIImageView *selectedEmailState;

@end

in initWithStyle: method, I had to recreate all the UI controls programmatically and add them to the contentView as subviews:

// SelectionCell.m
- (id)initWithStyle:(UITableViewCellStyle)style reuseIdentifier:(NSString *)reuseIdentifier
{
    self = [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];
    if (self) {
        // Initialization code
        self.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;

        _contactPictureID = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:(CGRectMake(10, 14, 48, 48))];

        _contactName = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:(CGRectMake(66, 14, 201, 30))];
        _contactName.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:20];
        _contactName.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentLeft;

        _emailAddress = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:(CGRectMake(66, 41, 201, 21))];
        _emailAddress.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:16];
        _emailAddress.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentLeft;

        _selectedEmailState = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:(CGRectMake(275, 22, 32, 32))];

        [self.contentView addSubview:_contactPictureID];
        [self.contentView addSubview:_contactName];
        [self.contentView addSubview:_emailAddress];
        [self.contentView addSubview:_selectedEmailState];
    }
    return self;
}

Now I am able to instantiate my custom cell. In cellForRowAtIndexPath method

static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"SelectionCell";
SelectionCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

if (cell == nil) {
    cell = [[SelectionCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier]; }

And now everything is working as it should be.