Is it possible to set a fixed width on the UIImageView inside a UITableViewCell ?

Question

I have a UITableView in which of course I use some UITableViewCells. Now some cells have an icon / image which I want to display in front of the text, and some others don't. I didn't create the UITableViewCells in Interface Builder, just using the default stuff :

// Customize the appearance of table view cells. - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";

UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
    cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
}

// Set up the cell...
switch (indexPath.row) {
    case 0:
        cell.textLabel.text = @"Nearby";
        cell.imageView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"marker.png"];
        break;
    case 1:
        cell.textLabel.text = @"Bookmarked";            
        cell.imageView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"bookmark.png"];
        break;
    case 2:
        cell.textLabel.text = @"Other";
        break;
    default:
        break;
}

return cell;

}

This seems to be working perfectly, but I have a little issue with the width of the cell.imageView. The icons I'm using seem to have a different width. Some are 21 pixels, others are 25 pixels and in some casts I have no icon at all.

This results in the text for the textLabel to appear at different positions (depending on the width of the imageView).

Now my question is, can I add some code / statement which will make sure that the imageView of my cell is always 30 pixels wide ? Even if there is no image for that imageView ?

Can this be done programatically or will I have to make a Custom Cell in InterfaceBuilder or even create my own UITableViewCell descendant.

Any information on this topic is welcome.

Regards,

Stefaan

Answer 1

The imageView property in a table cell is readonly, however, the imageView's properties are as they would normally be, so you can manipulate its width via it's frame property.

I'm almost certain that setting an empty imageView's width isn't going to help. I believe that if an imageView doesn't contain an image, the table cell doesn't add it as a subview...

On cells that don't have an image, you could try setting the frame of the textLabel so that it's origin is where the other textLabels would be if images were present? Remember that if you do that, you'll have to shorten the textLabels width too.

Answer 2

A slightly easier but hackier way:

1) Make sure your images are the same width. Use an image editor like Acorn to pad the images with a transparent area.

2) Make a transparent .png 30 (or whatever) pixels wide. Set this as the image on rows with no icon.

3) There's no step three!