Question

I’m trying to read a reference to an image file out of a plist and make the image display in a detail view. although I can do this for my table view layout, I’m having trouble doing this with my DetailViewController nib file. I’m hoping someone can help me fix the problem and explain to me where I’m going wrong. What follows with the code is my explanation of what I THINK I’m doing. If you could explain to me what I’m doing wrong as much as show me what I should be doing, I’d really appreciate it. I’m trying to learn as much as trying to make things work.

I think the problem resides in two places. The first is my didSelectRowAtIndexPath method:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    //Get the dictionary of the selected data source.
    NSDictionary *dictionary = [[[self.localSites objectAtIndex:indexPath.section]objectForKey:@"rowData"] objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];

    TableDetailViewController *controller = [[TableDetailViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"TableDetailViewController" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];  

    controller.title = [dictionary objectForKey:@"Location"];
    controller.dText = [dictionary objectForKey:@"details"];

    // THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS
    NSString *tiny = [dictionary objectForKey:@"thumb"];
    controller.mainImage  = [UIImage imageNamed:tiny];

    [self.navigationController pushViewController:controller animated:YES];

    [controller release];
}

In the code above marked //THIS IS WHERE I THINK THE PROBLEM IS, What I’m trying to do is grab the reference to the image contained in string in the plist and use the reference to get the image. This approach works fine in my cellForRowAtIndexPath method where I use it to populate the left hand side of the table with thumbnail images referred to from my plist.

In the above code mainImage refers to a string I’ve tried to connect to a UIImageView outlet in my TableDetailViewController.xib through my TableDetailViewController.m file as below. This is where I think Problem number two is:

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated 
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    //This Bit says that the text contained in UITextView blurb is the string dText, which is used in my didSelectRowAtIndex method
    blurb.text = dText;

    //This is where I try to do the same thing by saying that UIImageView topImage is the NSString mainImage which I use in my didSelectRowAtIndex method
    topImage.image =  mainImage;    
}

My Logic was that topImage is a UIImageView and mainImage is the string containing the image view which in my didSelectRowAtIndex method I pass the value of the key ‘thumb’ contained in my plist file.

However the above throws up warnings. Can anyone help?

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Answer 1

Ok, I managed to work this out. My mistake was to declare the pointer mainImage as a NSString instead of as a UIImage. I did this because in the .plist I am using the name of the image is contained within a string. I realised though that as I change this string for the .png file of the same name in my didSelectRowAtIndexPath method, by the time I’m passing it to mainImage it is no longer a string I’m passing, it’s an image. Sorted! An easy mistake for a newb like me to make. Thought I should post as I’m sure I wont be the only one who makes this mistake.