Mixing static and dynamic sections in a grouped table view

Question

I need a grouped UITableView similar to the one for Twitter accounts in Settings app:

Answer 1

Static is just a provision on top of dynamic layout. Basically static is a WYSIWYG.

If you are not resistant to experiment with values, I would recommend go dynamic. There are hundreds of examples available, such as this and this.

As you go further, you would see yourself diverging towards two options when customizing dynamic table views:

• Subclass UITableViewCell (more effort , but good in the long run). Again, follow this.
• Play with UITableViewCell properties inside cellForRowAtIndexPath: (less effort and quick result but may or may not be performance-friendly due to possible redrawing)

The possibilities are endless, such as here where cell background view is customized.

Answer 2

Dynamic prototype cells can behave like static ones if you just return the cell without adding any content in cellForRowAtIndexPath, so you can have both "static like" cells and dynamic ones (where the number of rows and the content are variable) by using dynamic prototypes.

In the example below, I started with a table view controller in IB (with a grouped table view), and changed the number of dynamic prototype cells to 3. I adjusted the size of the first cell to 80, and added a UIImageView and two labels. The middle cell is a Basic style cell, and the last one is another custom cell with a single centered label. I gave them each their own identifier. This is what it looks like in IB:

Then in code, I did this:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.theData = @[@"One",@"Two",@"Three",@"Four",@"Five"];
    [self.tableView reloadData];
}

-(NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    return 3;
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    if (section == 1)
        return self.theData.count;
    return 1;
}

-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    if (indexPath.section == 0)
        return 80;
    return 44;
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    UITableViewCell *cell;

    if (indexPath.section == 0) {
        cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"TitleCell" forIndexPath:indexPath];

    }else if (indexPath.section == 1) {
        cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"DataCell" forIndexPath:indexPath];
        cell.textLabel.text = self.theData[indexPath.row];

    }else if (indexPath.section == 2) {
        cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"ButtonCell" forIndexPath:indexPath];
    }

    return cell;
}

As you can see, for the "static like" cells, I just return the cell with the correct identifier, and I get exactly what I set up in IB. The result at runtime will look like your posted image with three sections.