spacing between UITableViewCells

Question

I am creating a ios app in swift and want to add spacing between cells like Facebook (pic bellow).

I am using a custom nib for the posts. I know to use UITableViewController. I figure I would use a separator style but it does not achieve the effect. I goggled around for hours and can't find a single tutorial in swift that makes sense! could some one explain how they did it in there app using swift? thanks!

Solution 1

This is my solution with result: (based on Jorge Casariego's answer)

override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("cell", forIndexPath: indexPath) as! CustomApplicationCell

    cell.contentView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear

    let whiteRoundedView : UIView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(10, 8, self.view.frame.size.width - 20, 149))

    whiteRoundedView.layer.backgroundColor = CGColorCreate(CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.8])
    whiteRoundedView.layer.masksToBounds = false
    whiteRoundedView.layer.cornerRadius = 2.0
    whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(-1, 1)
    whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.2

    cell.contentView.addSubview(whiteRoundedView)
    cell.contentView.sendSubviewToBack(whiteRoundedView)

    return cell
}

table row height: 165 point

header section height, footer section height: 10 point

and result

Edit For Swift 3 Syntax:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "cell", for: indexPath) as! CustomApplicationCell

    cell.contentView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear

    let whiteRoundedView : UIView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 8, width: self.view.frame.size.width - 20, height: 120))

    whiteRoundedView.layer.backgroundColor = CGColor(colorSpace: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), components: [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.9])
    whiteRoundedView.layer.masksToBounds = false
    whiteRoundedView.layer.cornerRadius = 2.0
    whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOffset = CGSize(width: -1, height: 1)
    whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.2

    cell.contentView.addSubview(whiteRoundedView)
    cell.contentView.sendSubview(toBack: whiteRoundedView)

    return cell
}

---

Simplest way for creating material card view:

github.com/SwiftCardView

Create CardView.swift

@IBDesignable
class CardView: UIView {

    @IBInspectable var cornerRadius: CGFloat = 2

    @IBInspectable var shadowOffsetWidth: Int = 0
    @IBInspectable var shadowOffsetHeight: Int = 3
    @IBInspectable var shadowColor: UIColor? = .black
    @IBInspectable var shadowOpacity: Float = 0.5

    override func layoutSubviews() {
        layer.cornerRadius = cornerRadius
        let shadowPath = UIBezierPath(roundedRect: bounds, cornerRadius: cornerRadius)

        layer.masksToBounds = false
        layer.shadowColor = shadowColor?.cgColor
        layer.shadowOffset = CGSize(width: shadowOffsetWidth, height: shadowOffsetHeight)
        layer.shadowOpacity = shadowOpacity
        layer.shadowPath = shadowPath.cgPath
    }
}

Now just add CardView class to your UIView.

Solution 2

With Swift 2 you can do spacing between UITableViewCells in this way:

In your TableViewController copy this:

    // In this case I returning 140.0. You can change this value depending of your cell
    override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, heightForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> CGFloat {
        return 140.0
    }

    override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, willDisplayCell cell: UITableViewCell, forRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {

        cell.contentView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()

        let whiteRoundedView : UIView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(0, 10, self.view.frame.size.width, 120))

        whiteRoundedView.layer.backgroundColor = CGColorCreate(CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0])
        whiteRoundedView.layer.masksToBounds = false
        whiteRoundedView.layer.cornerRadius = 2.0
        whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(-1, 1)
        whiteRoundedView.layer.shadowOpacity = 0.2

        cell.contentView.addSubview(whiteRoundedView)
        cell.contentView.sendSubviewToBack(whiteRoundedView)
    }

This is the result:

Solution 3

I spent at least an hour researching the topic. Finally, I came up win an idea to use a transparent border:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "faqCell", for: indexPath)

    // ...

    cell.layer.borderWidth = CGFloat(TABLE_CELLSPACING)
    cell.layer.borderColor = tableView.backgroundColor?.cgColor

    return cell
}

This works perfectly in Swift 3/Xcode 8.

Image: This is how it looks like on my side

Solution 4

code for Swift 4

override var frame: CGRect {
        get {
            return super.frame
        }
        set (newFrame) {
            var frame =  newFrame
            frame.origin.y += 4
            frame.size.height -= 2 * 5
            super.frame = frame
        }
    }

Solution 5

If you want to have right / legal spacing, not a trick, you can try UICollectionView instead of UITableView.

UICollectionView is more generic than UITableView, and you can custom almost thing on it.

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