Disable selection of a single UITableViewCell

Question

How do you disable selecting only a single cell in a UITableView? I have several, and I only want the last to be disabled.

Solution 1

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath 
{
    UITableViewCell *cell = ...

    cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;

}

Solution 2

To stop just some cells being selected use:

cell.userInteractionEnabled = NO;

As well as preventing selection, this also stops tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath: being called for the cells that have it set. It will also make voiceover treat it the same as a dimmed button (which may or may not be what you want).

Note that if you have interactive elements in the cell (ie. switches/buttons), you'll need to use cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone; instead and then make sure to ignore taps on the cell in tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath:.

Solution 3

-(NSIndexPath *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    if ([self numberOfRowsInSection] == [indexPath row]) {
        return nil;
    } else {
        return indexPath;
    }
}

the last row of the table will not be selected

Solution 4

As I mentioned in another thread all the above methods are not solving the problem precisely. The correct way of disabling a cell is through the method

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayCell:(UITableViewCell *)cell forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath

and in that method one has to use

[cell setSelectionStyle:UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone];

which disables cell selection but still allows the user to interact with subviews of the cell such as a UISwitch.

Solution 5

The cleanest solution that I have found to this only makes use of the delegate method willDisplayCell.

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayCell:(UITableViewCell *)cell forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    if([indexPath row] == 0) //<-----ignores touches on first cell in the UITableView
    {                        //simply change this around to suit your needs
        cell.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
        cell.textLabel.enabled = NO;
        cell.detailTextLabel.enabled = NO;
    }
}

You don't have to take any further action in the delegate method didSelectRowAtIndexPath to ensure that the selection of this cell is ignored. All touches on this cell will be ignored and the text in the cell will be grayed out as well.

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