Why do all backgrounds disappear on UITableViewCell select?

Question

My current project\'s UITableViewCell behavior is baffling me. I have a fairly straightforward subclass of UITableViewCell. It adds a few extra elements to the base view (vi

Answer 1

Having read through all the existing answers, came up with an elegant solution using Swift by only subclassing UITableViewCell.

extension UIView {
    func iterateSubViews(block: ((view: UIView) -> Void)) {
        for subview in self.subviews {
            block(view: subview)
            subview.iterateSubViews(block)
        }
    }
}

class CustomTableViewCell: UITableViewCell {
   var keepSubViewsBackgroundColorOnSelection = false

    override init(style: UITableViewCellStyle, reuseIdentifier: String?) {
        super.init(style: style, reuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier)
    }

    // MARK: Overrides
    override func setSelected(selected: Bool, animated: Bool) {
        if self.keepSubViewsBackgroundColorOnSelection {
            var bgColors = [UIView: UIColor]()
            self.contentView.iterateSubViews() { (view) in

                guard let bgColor = view.backgroundColor else {
                    return
                }

                bgColors[view] = bgColor
            }

            super.setSelected(selected, animated: animated)

            for (view, backgroundColor) in bgColors {
                view.backgroundColor = backgroundColor
            }
        } else {
            super.setSelected(selected, animated: animated)
        }
    }

    override func setHighlighted(highlighted: Bool, animated: Bool) {
        if self.keepSubViewsBackgroundColorOnSelection {
            var bgColors = [UIView: UIColor]()
            self.contentView.iterateSubViews() { (view) in
                guard let bgColor = view.backgroundColor else {
                    return
                }

                bgColors[view] = bgColor
            }

            super.setHighlighted(highlighted, animated: animated)

            for (view, backgroundColor) in bgColors {
                view.backgroundColor = backgroundColor
            }
        } else {
            super.setHighlighted(highlighted, animated: animated)
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Found a pretty elegant solution instead of messing with the tableView methods. You can create a subclass of UIView that ignores setting its background color to clear color. Code:

class NeverClearView: UIView {
    override var backgroundColor: UIColor? {
        didSet {
            if UIColor.clearColor().isEqual(backgroundColor) {
                backgroundColor = oldValue
            }
        }
    }
}

Obj-C version would be similar, the main thing here is the idea