iPhone SDK: Setting the size of UISearchDisplayController's table view

Question

My app's table view does not occupy the full screen height, as I've allowed 50px at the bottom for a banner.

When I begin typing in the search bar, the search results table view is larger; it fills all available screen space between the search bar and the tab bar. This means that the very last search result is obscured by the banner.

How do I specify the size of the table view used by UISearchDisplayController? There's no bounds or frame property that I can see.

EDIT TO ADD SCREENSHOTS:

This is how the table view is set up in IB. It ends 50px short of the synthesized tab bar.

This is how content displays normally. I've scrolled to the very bottom here.

This is how it displays when searching. Again, I've scrolled to the very bottom. If I disable the banner ad, I can see that the search display table spreads right down to the tab bar.

Answer 1

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're describing, it would be nice to have a screenshot.

It sounds like what's happening is the UITableView is the size of the screen and the banner is overlapping the bottom 50 pixels of it. All UIView children have a frame, bounds, and center properties they inherit from their common UIView parent.

@interface UIView(UIViewGeometry)

// animatable. do not use frame if view is transformed since it will not correctly reflect the actual location of the view. use bounds + center instead.
@property(nonatomic) CGRect            frame;

// use bounds/center and not frame if non-identity transform. if bounds dimension is odd, center may be have fractional part
@property(nonatomic) CGRect            bounds;      // default bounds is zero origin, frame size. animatable
@property(nonatomic) CGPoint           center;      // center is center of frame. animatable
@property(nonatomic) CGAffineTransform transform;   // default is CGAffineTransformIdentity. animatable
// ... from UIView.h

You can manipulate these properties as you like, it sounds like you simply need to adjust the bounds to be 50 pixels smaller than the screen, and do some math to calculate your new center.

Answer 2

The key to solving this one was finding out when to change the geometry of the table view. Calling:

[self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView setFrame:someframe];

after creating the UISearchDisplayController was futile. The answer was this delegate method:

-(void)searchDisplayController:(UISearchDisplayController *)controller didShowSearchResultsTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    tableView.frame = someframe;
}

Note, I had also tried -searchDisplayController:didLoadSearchResultsTableView but it did no good in there. You have to wait until it's displayed to resize it.

Also note that if you simply assign tableView.frame = otherTableView.frame, the search results table overlaps its corresponding search bar, so it is impossible to clear or cancel the search!

My final code looked like this:

-(void)searchDisplayController:(UISearchDisplayController *)controller didShowSearchResultsTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {

    CGRect f = self.masterTableView.frame;  // The tableView the search replaces
    CGRect s = self.searchDisplayController.searchBar.frame;
    CGRect newFrame = CGRectMake(f.origin.x,
                                 f.origin.y + s.size.height,
                                 f.size.width,
                                 f.size.height - s.size.height);

    tableView.frame = newFrame;
}

Answer 3

Thank You Chris Newman!! After struggling with this issue for five hours, subclassing UITableView, and trying every other possible means of keeping the filtered table view the same size as the original, Chris's solution was exactly what I needed.

Heather Shoemaker
Cheyenne Technology