Placeholders reappear when scrolling uitextField out of view - ios

Question 1

The problem here is that everytime a cell gets reloaded, you initialize a new text view which won't have the text that was previously entered. The best solution to this problem is for you to keep an NSMutableArray* that stores the user's input. You have different options, i'll just describe the steps for one possible solution:

declare an NSMutableArray property for storing the user inputs as follows:

@property (strong, nonatomic)  NSMutableArray *userData;

and the getter that performs lazy initialisation:

 -(NSMutableArray *)userData
 {
    if(!_userData){
        _userData = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:[self.tableData count]];
        for (int i = 0; i < [self.tableData count]; i++) 
            [_userData addObject:@""];
    }
    return _userData;
 }

Use the textfield's property tag to store the row for the particular textfield as follows:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath 
{
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Cell%d", indexPath.row ]];
    if(cell == nil)
        cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] init];

    cell.textLabel.text = _tableData[indexPath.row];        
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.tag = indexPath.row;

    if (indexPath.row == 0) {
        textField.placeholder = @"(Required)";
        [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    } else if (indexPath.row == 1) {
        UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 6, 185, 30)];
        label.text = @"(Required)";
        label.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
        label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
        [cell.contentView addSubview:label];
        secondCellField = label;
        secondCell = cell;
    } else if (indexPath.row == 2) {
        textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
        [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    } else if (indexPath.row == 3) {
        textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
        [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    } else if (indexPath.row == 4) {
        textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
        [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    } else if (indexPath.row == 5) {
        textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
        [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    } else if (indexPath.row == 6) {
        UISwitch *switch = [[UISwitch alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(210, 8, 50, 30)];
        [switch addTarget:self action:@selector(segwayToWork) forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];
        [cell.contentView addSubview:switch];

        _workSwitch = switch;
    }


    if(![[self.userData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] isEqualToString:@""]){
        NSLog(@"%@ at indexPath.row %d",[self.userData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row], indexPath.row);
        textField.placeholder = nil;
        textField.text = [self.userData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    }
    return cell;
}

Finally, in your UITextField delegate, you can do something like:

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *)textField
{
    [textField resignFirstResponder];
    self.userData[textField.tag] = textField.text;
    return YES;
}

Now when a cell will be reloaded, it will first check whether there was already a user input, and if there was one, it will set the placeholder to nil and will instead show just the user input.

Question 2

Your problem is mutiple TextFields are created for different cell. You need to use reusable cells Like:

UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"Cell"];
if (cell == nil) {
        // allocate the cell:
        cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
         if (indexPath.row == 0) {
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.placeholder = @"(Required)";
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
} else if (indexPath.row == 1) {
    UILabel *textField = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 6, 185, 30)];
    textField.text = @"(Required)";
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
    textField.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
    secondCellField = textField;
    secondCell = cell;
} else if (indexPath.row == 2) {
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
} else if (indexPath.row == 3) {
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
} else if (indexPath.row == 4) {
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
} else if (indexPath.row == 5) {
    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(110, 10, 185, 30)];
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    textField.delegate = self;
    textField.placeholder = @"(Optional)";
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
} elseif (indexPath.row == 6) {
    UISwitch *textField = [[UISwitch alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(210, 8, 50, 30)];
    textField.tag = 1111;//tag
    [textField addTarget:self action:@selector(segwayToWork) forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];
    [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];

    _workSwitch = textField;
}

}
cell.textLabel.text = _tableData[indexPath.row];

return cell;

}

I have tryied to reuse UITableViewCell So please customize it as per your requirement. you can use this code also.

Question 3

Creating new text fields is indeed the problem. You should NOT alloc/init any text fields in cellForRowAtIndexPath.

Instead, either make a custom cell or use the "dynamic prototype" in your storyboard file. Give your text field a tag so you can easily configure it.

//above
#define TextFieldTag 42

// in cellForRowAtIndexPath:
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"Cell"];
// If @"Cell" is the identifier you specified
// if you have storyboard or a xib, no need to check for cell==nil

UITextField *textField = (UITextField*) [cell viewWithTag:TextFieldTag]; 
// configure the text field based on indexPath.row

In case you are not using storyboard or xibs, you can lazily instantiate the text field like this:

UITextField *textField = (UITextField*) [cell viewWithTag:TextFieldTag];
if (!textField) {
   textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:textFieldFrame];
   textField.tag = TextFieldTag; 
   // more standard configuration
   [cell.contentView addSubview:textField];
}

And by the way, here is another tip for you. You should not hard code your table view rows. This results in not very readable code. You can use a simple enum on top of your class:

typedef enum {
   NameCell, AddressCell, 
   FirstOptionalCell, SecondOptionalCell,
   ThirdOptionalCell, CellCount } TableCell;

You can then just return "CellCount" in numberOrRowsInSection and reference the rows like this:

if (indexPath.row == NameCell)