Custom UITableView Dynamic Cell Height

Question

I have search and searched through endless blogs and articles on how to determine a dynamic height for a custom UITableViewCell and its detailed text. I have really had a hard time finding any good documentation on this.

What I need to do is have the cell grow according to the the text inside but never go below a height of 70.

I have tried several of the answers for this type of question here on StackOverflow but none of them worked. My whole app is just about finished but I really need to get this accomplished before I release and its troublesome.

Here is what I am trying but I just get a slop of cells overlapping each other. From what I read I need to find the frame if the custom cell or textview in the cell as well but I am not sure how to do that or mix them all together to return one height.

Any Help would be greatly appreciated Thank you!

- (CGFloat) tableView: (UITableView *) tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath: (NSIndexPath   
*) indexPath
{

  CGSize aSize;
aSize = [[(Tweet*)[tweets objectAtIndex:indexPath.row]tweet] sizeWithFont:[UIFont 
systemFontOfSize:14]
            constrainedToSize:CGSizeMake(300.0, 1000.0)
                lineBreakMode:UILineBreakModeTailTruncation];

return  aSize.height;
}

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/508/screenshot2011092816313.png — FreeAppl3, Sep 28 '11 at 21:32
The image shows what I get with just about every method I try! It seems it is getting the size of each text string but not resizing the cells — FreeAppl3, Sep 29 '11 at 16:56

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 28 '11 at 21:15

18

I had a similar issue a while back and this helped me tremendously.

#define PADDING 10.0f
- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)t heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    NSString *text = [self.items objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    CGSize textSize = [text sizeWithFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:14.0f] constrainedToSize:CGSizeMake(self.tableView.frame.size.width - PADDING * 3, 1000.0f)];

    return textSize.height + PADDING * 3;
}

answered Sep 28 '11 at 21:15

WrightsCS

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I had to replace the first "PADDING * 3" with "PADDING * 4" and the latter "PADDING * 3" with "PADDING * 2".... – Andre Bossard Jul 25 '13 at 08:08
Yes you will need to adjust according to you specific needs but this is just a base. – WrightsCS Jul 25 '13 at 15:29
5

You should note that `sizeWithFont:constrainedToSize:` is deprecated in iOS 7, so you should use `boundingRectWithSize:options:attributes:context:` – Max Desiatov Oct 06 '13 at 18:14

Tony · Answer 2 · 2014-02-05T17:38:39.373

Hey there so you are going to need to store the list of strings in an NSArray and then you are going to need to calculate the height of the nsstring using sizeWithFont:constrainedToSize: the documentation is found here http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/NSString_UIKit_Additions/Reference/Reference.html

so your tableView method should look something like

-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
NSDictionary *stringAttributes = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[UIFont fontWithName:"Helvetica" size:9] forKey: NSFontAttributeName];

     CGSize cell_size = [string boundingRectWithSize:CGSizeMake(300,999) 
                            options:NSStringDrawingTruncatesLastVisibleLine|NSStringDrawingUsesLineFragmentOrigin     
                            attributes:stringAttributes context:nil].size;
if (cell_size.height > 70)
{
return cell_size.height;
}
else 
{
return 70;
}
}

EDIT : THIS has been updated for iOS 7

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

I just wrote about this problem and how I finally decided to solve it. You can read about it here: Dynamic UITableView Cell Height Based on Contents

Basically, I created a UITableView subclass that automates the handling and calculation of dynamic cell height for both default and custom cells. It is not a silver bullet and probably needs to be extended and tweaked, but I have used it as is in several apps with good result.

You can grab the code here: https://github.com/danielsaidi/AutoSizeTableView

Hope it helps!

(...and if it didn't, I'd love to hear why not)

Alexandre · Answer 4 · 2014-05-14T02:12:10.410

I tried many solutions, but the one that worked was this, suggested by a friend:

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

    int height = [StringUtils findHeightForText:yourLabel havingWidth:yourWidth andFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:17.0f]];

    height += [StringUtils findHeightForText:yourOtherLabel havingWidth:yourWidth andFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:14.0f]];

    return height + CELL_SIZE_WITHOUT_LABELS; //important to know the size of your custom cell without the height of the variable labels
}

The StringUtils.h class:

 #import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

    @interface StringUtils : NSObject

    + (CGFloat)findHeightForText:(NSString *)text havingWidth:(CGFloat)widthValue andFont:(UIFont *)font;

    @end

StringUtils.m class:

    #import "StringUtils.h"

    @implementation StringUtils

    + (CGFloat)findHeightForText:(NSString *)text havingWidth:(CGFloat)widthValue andFont:(UIFont *)font {
        CGFloat result = font.pointSize+4;
        if (text) {
            CGSize size;

            CGRect frame = [text boundingRectWithSize:CGSizeMake(widthValue, CGFLOAT_MAX)
                                              options:NSStringDrawingUsesLineFragmentOrigin
                                           attributes:@{NSFontAttributeName:font}
                                              context:nil];
            size = CGSizeMake(frame.size.width, frame.size.height+1);
            result = MAX(size.height, result); //At least one row
        }
        return result;
    }

    @end

It worked perfectly for me. I had a Custom Cell with 3 images with fixed sizes, 2 labels with fixed sizes and 2 variable labels. Worked like a charm. Hope it works for you too.

Best regards, Alexandre.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 16 '14 at 16:28

iOS 7

- (CGSize)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView layout:(UICollectionViewLayout *)collectionViewLayout referenceSizeForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    NSString *text = @"Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello HelloHello HelloHello HelloHello HelloHello HelloHello Hello";

    CGRect rect = [text boundingRectWithSize:CGSizeMake(280.0f, CGFLOAT_MAX) options:NSStringDrawingTruncatesLastVisibleLine|NSStringDrawingUsesLineFragmentOrigin attributes:@{
        NSFontAttributeName: [UIFont fontWithName:@"Hellvetica" size:14.0f]
    } context:nil];

    return CGSizeMake(320.0f, ceil(rect.size.height) + 10.0f);
}

Timur Mustafaev · Answer 6 · 2011-09-28T20:30:51.320

-4

Use UITableViewDelegate method:

-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
 // here you need to get height of your textlabel in your custom cell. 
 MyCustomCell *myCell = (MyCustomCell *)[tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
 return myCell.myTextLabel.frame.size.height + 20;
}

Something like this

edited Sep 28 '11 at 20:30

answered Sep 28 '11 at 20:09

Timur Mustafaev

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The first line of code [tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath]; just makes the app crash.... thank you for the reply though – FreeAppl3 Sep 28 '11 at 21:04
It crashes because you don't have cells yet. I didn't think about that, sorry. WrightsCS answer should help – Timur Mustafaev Sep 29 '11 at 06:43
It creashed,"EXE_BAD_ACCESS " – HelloWorld Oct 09 '11 at 07:58

Custom UITableView Dynamic Cell Height

6 Answers6

iOS 7

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