Question

I have an UITableview controller without an XIB.
I set the background colour of the tableview by doing this:

[self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor colorWithPatternImage:
                                    [UIImage imageNamed:@"MmyImage.png"]]];

My image is a gradient image, so eventhough the above code is ok, it redraws the image for each cell when the tableview goes to edit view, and it appears as lines which is not looking elegant.

I would like to set the tableviews background to clear colour and set the superview’s colour to the image, so that the tableview transitions smoothly over the superview. However the below code does not work:

[self.view setBackgroundColor:[UIColor colorWithPatternImage:
                               [UIImage imageNamed:@"myImage.png"]]];
[self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];

This makes the background completely white, I dont know why.

Help appreciated..thanks.

Edited:new code but this does not work as well:

   UIImageView * imgBg = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[[UIImage imageNamed:@"myImage.png"] stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:6 topCapHeight:6]];
     imgBg.frame = self.tableView.window.bounds;
    [self.tableView.superview addSubview:imgBg];
//[self.view addSubview:imgBg];
    //[self.tableView.window sendSubviewToBack:imgBg];
    //[self.view  bringSubviewToFront:self.tableView];
    [self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
    [imgBg release];

Answer 1

In a custom UITableViewController subclass, self.view will return the same as self.tableView. So what you’re doing there is altering the same object. In the end, you get to see the UIWindow. So to get the desired result, you should do this –

[self.view.window setBackgroundColor:[UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"myImage.png"]]];
[self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];

UITableView has a backgroundView property. Use it.

aTableView.backgroundView = [[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:aTableView.bounds] autorelease];
aTableView.backgroundView.backgroundColor = backgroundColor;