Question

I understand how to get button clicks if I have a button within a row of UITableView but what I cannot figure out is the correct way to add a button to a UITableViewCell subclass and get the clicks for it within my UITableView class. I think I’m making the mistake of putting everything into the layoutSubviews method. Can somebody please point me in the right direction?

-(void) layoutSubviews 
{
//  UIButton *myButton1; <- This is declared as a property in my subclass header file

  [super layoutSubviews];

  //self.textLabel.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 40, 20);

  //        cell.textLabel.text = timeElapsed;
  self.textLabel.frame = CGRectMake( 5, 5, 80, self.frame.size.height - 10 );
  self.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator;   

  // Don't need UIButton alloc because method below does it for us..
  myButton1 = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];

  //CGRect cellFrame = [self.tableView rectForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
  CGRect cellFrame = self.frame;

  myButton1.tag = idButton;

  int nButtonWidth  = 80;
  int nButtonHeight = 30;
  int nActualCellWidth = cellFrame.size.width - 40;
  int nButtonDeltaX = ( nActualCellWidth      - nButtonWidth  ) / 2;
  int nButtonDeltaY = ( cellFrame.size.height - nButtonHeight ) / 2;
  myButton1.frame = CGRectMake( nButtonDeltaX, nButtonDeltaY, nButtonWidth, nButtonHeight );      

  [myButton1 setTitle:@"OK" forState:UIControlStateNormal];

  // PDS: Add delaget for stopwatch clicking..
//  [myButton1 addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonClickedStopWatch:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];  

  [self.contentView addSubview:myButton1];      
  [self.contentView bringSubviewToFront:myButton1];
}

Answer 1

First of all, layoutSubviews may be called multiple times so that’s really not a good place to create a button and add it to the view hierarchy. This will cause a new button to be created each time. You should rather create the button in your designated initializer and only use layoutSubviews for setting frames and such.

Second, an instance of UITableView is not usually a good place to handle button clicks. That’s commonly a task for a subclass of UIViewController.

Whichever class you select for handling the tap action, start by adding a property in the cell for your custom button. Then let the UITableView or UIViewController add the action target for that control event by accessing the property and setting target to self.