Question

I’ve read quite a few different ways to tackle the problem of setting the UITableViewCell color. Was just after a quick confirmation that the code/approach below is fine re a best practice / performance point of view?

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayCell:(UITableViewCell *)cell forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    cell.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
}

Some notes/questions associated with this:

1. Would this be the best re performance in the sense that it seems like this code will be called quite a lot? i.e. as opposed to if the background color was just set once for the cell design, say in IB (which I know doesn’t quite work) see here
2. I see some sample code that loops through the various sub-views of a cell to set them, but this wouldn’t normally be required? I’ve tried this code above and it seemingly works ok.

Answer 1

You are correct, this is the way to do it. The UITableViewCell documentation even explicitly states that background colors should be set in tableView:willDisplayCell:forRowAtIndexPath: as opposed to tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:. Don’t fear, you are on the right path sir.