Question

I would want to create a custom UITableViewCell which should have a different appearance than the default implementation. For this I subclassed the UITableViewCell and want to add a label, textbox and a background image. Only the background image seems not to appear.
Maybe I’m completely on the wrong track here and maybe subclassing a UITableViewCell is a bad idea after all, is there any reason why that would be the case and is there a better way?

Anyhow this is what I tried, in the subclass’s initWithStyle I put the following:

- (id)initWithStyle:(UITableViewCellStyle)style reuseIdentifier:(NSString *)reuseIdentifier 
{
    self = [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];

    if (self == nil)
    { 
        return nil;
    }

     UIImage *rowBackground;

     backRowImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"backRow.png"];
     ((UIImageView *)self.backgroundView).image = backRowImage;

 }

What am I doing wrong here? Should I set the background image in the drawRect method as well?

Answer 1

According to the header file, the backgroundView defaults to nil for plain-style tables. You should try creating your own UIImageView and sticking it in there.