Question

My iPad (!!) app has a table view as the UISplitViewControllers details controller. To trigger various actions I use the following:

1. A swipe gesture on the cells to make a button visible that is called “Action”.
2. Touching the action button shows a UIActionSheet with various options (Delete, Send, Download).
3. Touching one of the buttons in the action sheet triggers the action.

To achieve this behavior I customized the title of the “Delete” button which would normally be shown by the swipe gesture.

Please note that touching the cell itself will open/preview the touched item.

However, my test users complain that they cannot find the action menu because they would never try swiping the cells and if they would, they would do it to delete the entry. But they like that touching the cell previews the item.

Hence my question: what is the correct way of doing it? Show a disclosure button in every row (the little blue arrow to the right)? Show UIBarButtonItem in every row to bring up the action menu?
I’m so against it because it looks ridiculous to have a button in every row.

Answer 1

Sounds like a tricky situation; I’d either:

1. Add a detail disclosure button to each cell, and have that push a new view controller with the options (like the YouTube app).

2. Show the options in the “entry” view and have the “swipe” action an extra, discoverable feature (like the Twitter app).