iPhone UI design elements

Question

The item is consisting of short text 1-2 words and description 1~20 words. UITableView is listing all of the items and user have choice to select. Selecting will get him to item details view. From this point I don't understand:

1. which controls/container I should use to represent short text and description text (normal view)
2. how to organize edit view the best way and which controls to use:
   1. allow user to edit in the same details view(what kind of controls to use?)
   2. show a new view(scroll view) with text field for short text and text view for description(ugly)
   3. in edit mode let user tap each item detail and show separate view to edit short text and description(looks too complicated from user's point of view, too many steps)
   4. some better idea...

Answer 1

I would recommend a tableview hierarchy three views deep.

The first tableview show the full list of item. Selecting an item takes you to a detail view. The detail view is a grouped table with each cell showing a one of the data elements. Selecting one of those takes you to and edit view with an editable text field or a text view.

See the Clock app's alarm tab for this kind of layout. The top tableview shows all the alarms, the second shows the individual attributes of a single alarm as a grouped table. Selecting one of the attributes takes you to a custom editor view for that alarm attribute.

You first editor view should have a single editable text field and you second editor view a single editable text view to hold the longer block of text.