Best (Any) way blend tableview section header onto top of a grouped tableview

Answer 1

1. Don't do what you're doing, it's against HIG

2. Ok, ok, I'll tell you how to do it:

You're going to want to do your own cell background views. The default grouped one is not what you want.

When a tableview asks you for a cell, set its backgroundView and selectedBackgroundView to something that looks appropriate for its place in the tableview.

Usually, this means a UIImageView with the appropriate image, though you can go wild here with a custom view, but there are gotchas.

So in your case, you would do

if (indexPath.row > sectionRowCount - 1) {
    //Not the last row
    //Put in the middle background
} else {
    //Put in the end background
}

Then you'll want a custom table section header, but that's pretty easy.

In your case, you probably won't have to worry about when there's just one row, so that makes things even easier.

Answer 2

Take a look at the tutorial here: cocoa with love basically what you need is 3 different images. One for the top row, one for the bottom, and a 3rd for the middle rows.