UISearchBar in a UITableView

Question

I'm trying to mimic the behaviour of a table view like one in the iPod app for Artists - it's a sectioned table view with a section index on the right and with a search bar at the top, but initially hidden when view shown.

I am using sdk 3.1.2 and IB, so simply dragged a UISearchDisplayController in to my NIB - it does wire everything up ready for searching. The problem starts because I'm adding the UISearchBar in to the first section of the UITableView, because if I understand correctly I must do this so I can jump to the search bar by touching the search icon in the section index directly? When the table view appears I see the search bar but it has resized and I now have a white block behind the section index at the top. It does'nt take the color of the UISearchBar's surround which interestingly is different to that shown in Interface Builder.

Searching around, I did find a tip to add a small navigation bar and a UISearchBar in a UIView, then add this to the table view cell - this works.. BUT the color of the navigation bar's background is what you'd expect normally (gray), not the different color as noted above?! More interesting, if I click the search bar to start a search, then click Cancel, all is fixed!!! The background along the whole tableview cell when the search bar is, is the same!!?!

Thanks for any tips.

Answer 1

Answered my own question, but might be helpful to other beginners:

• Put the search bar in the table view header when view loads, scroll contentOffset down the height of this search bar (typically 44 pixels), but easy to check dynamically
• Add a search icon in the section index with "{search}"
• Make the sectionIndexSection for the search -1
• When handling section index touches use the 'special' index value for search "-1" (to scroll the contentOffset back to (0, 0)