Question

I am woundering how I could show a activity indicator on a cell from the didselectCellFromIndexPath method?

basicly i want to start the activity indicator animation from the did select then once I get a return from my parsing class I would stop the animation and replace with a tick. but im not sure how to do this inside the didselectcell method? this is the code I would use.

cellActivityIndicator = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray];
        [cell setAccessoryView:cellActivityIndicator];
//then
[cellActivityIndicator startAnimating];
//then
[cellActivityIndicator stopAnimating];

but i just need some advice on doing it inside indexPath:didSelectRowAtIndexPath: method

Answer 1

In your didSelectRowAtIndexPath method, you can access the cell itself using:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{ 
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];

    //Initialise, add to cell's view and start your activity indicator

    dispatch_async( dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{

        //Call your function or whatever work that needs to be done
        //Code in this part is run on a background thread

        dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void) {
            //Stop your activity indicator
            //Code here is run on the main thread
        });
    });
}

This method uses libdispatch/Grand Central Dispatch and requires you to have iOS 4 or greater.