Question

I am new at iOS development.

I want to check if my table is empty. If it is, I want to :

---

Increase height of the first row and display "No new messages!"

OR

Get rid of the table and just display "No new messages" in the center of the page.

---

How would I do that?

Answer 1

(Let’s assume you have an array from which you want to populate the table view. This is a pretty standard way for populating table views. Let’s call this theoretical array dataArr.)

In your data source:

- (NSUInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tv numberOfRowsInSection:(NSUInteger)section
{
    if ([dataArr count] == 0) {
        // empty table
        return 1;
    }
    return [dataArr count];
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tv cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)ip
{
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tv dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"someCellID"];
    if (cell == nil)
        cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:@"someCellID"] autorelease];

    if ([dataArr count] == 0) {
        // empty table
        cell.textLabel.text = @"No new messages";
    } else {
        // configure as normally
    }
    return cell;
}

In your delegate:

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tv heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)ip
{
    if ([dataArr count] == 0) {
        // empty table
        return 88.0f; // 2 times the normal height
    }
    // else return the normal height:
    return 44.0f;
}