Do I need to set heightForRowAtIndexPath if I am using a custom UITableViewCell?

Question

Do I need to set heightForRowAtIndexPath if I am using a custom UITableViewCell? In my NIB I have already set the cell height.

When I over-ride heightForRowAtIndexPath the contents of my cell don't appear, even though it is set to the height defined in the NIB.

If I don't over-ride heightForRowAtIndexPath the contents of the cell appear, but there is overflow since the default height is not large enough.

Answer 1

If all your rows are the same height, then you can set the rowHeight property of your UITableView instead of implementing tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:. If you have rows of different heights, then you have to implement tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:.

Neither of these methods will automatically return the height of the cell you defined in your NIB, as they get called before you start constructing cells in tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:.

To use the height of the cell defined in your NIB, I recommend that you define a custom property of your controller called prototypeCell, which will hold a single cell that never gets displayed on your table. In tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:, check to see if prototypeCell is nil. If it is, initialize it from your NIB. Then return prototypeCell.frame.size.height.