uitableview cell autoresize in ios7 for cell w. more than a single label [IMG]

Question

I have a tableview that displays a feed of statuses(pictured below) and im trying to figure out how to size each cell appropriately aka short statuses having a smaller cell and bigger cells that display all the status text for longer statuses. Ive come across this tut: http://www.cimgf.com/2009/09/23/uitableviewcell-dynamic-height/

but, im still a little confused on how I would go about calculating in the extra space for my buttons or the margin to the left for my thumb img.

currently it consists of 2 buttons, a label (for the users name) , a thumb img and a textfield (unsure if I should be using a textfield or label for displaying the status, either or is fine with me if i it works)

Please excuse me in advance if this is a question that has already been answered somewhere. I am primarly a Android developer just getting started in IOS and have found alot of mixed answers on this topic so im a little unsure if there is a simple solution to this problem in IOS7

Answer 1

There are several ways of doing this, but I've found that the most reliable is to use a temporary and invisible UITextView to get the necessary size.

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    //Ideally you should do lazy loading so that instead of creating a new textView each time, you just reuse the same one.
    UITextView *temp = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.tableView.frame.size.width, 44)]; //This initial size doesn't matter
    temp.font = __Your_desired_font__
    temp.text = @"Put your status here";

    CGFloat textViewWidth = __your_constraint_width__
    CGRect tempFrame = CGRectMake(0,0,textViewWidth,44); //The height of this frame doesn't matter.
    CGSize tvsize = [temp sizeThatFits:CGSizeMake(tempFrame.size.width, tempFrame.size.height)]; //This calculates the necessary size so that all the text fits in the necessary width.

    //Add the height of the other UI elements inside your cell

    return tvsize.height + staticElementHeights


}

This works on iOS 7, but I think if you want to support iOS 6 you need to actually add the textView as a subview for this to work. Just set temp.hidden = YES

The way text is displayed in a UILabel is different from a UITextView, so for a UILabel, you should use the method described in this answer iOS auto adjust label height