iOS Tutorial UITableView LongClick Trigger

UITableView is a very powerful Listview. It loads items very fast and scrolling is very smooth. thanx to b4i it is also very customizable.

B4i support 5 Events for the UITableView:

Sub tv_AccessoryButtonClicked (SectionIndex As Int, Cell As TableCell)
 
End Sub

Sub tv_ActionButtonClicked (SectionIndex As Int, Cell As TableCell, Text As String)
 
End Sub

Sub tv_Click
 
End Sub

Sub tv_LongClick
 
End Sub

Sub tv_SelectedChanged (SectionIndex As Int, Cell As TableCell)
 
End Sub

As you can see the AccessoryButtonClicked, ActionButtonClicked, and SelectedChanged will return the SectionIndex and the Cell. This is very important for us to be able to know which row was pressed.

The Click and LongClick event does not return anything. So the use of them is very limited. As I needed to trigger a LongClick like Apple does it in a lot of their Apps (Files, Email, ...) i looked for a way to do that. B4i does give me an opportunity to do that by adding a CustomView.

tc.CustomView

using this feature will allow me to add a Panel with any views I like and almost use my TableView as the so familiar View we all know and love the CustomListView.

So now I can trigger a LongPress and know where I have pressed. What we were looking for right? Well, almost.
if I use the Tableview without a Customview and add 1000 items it takes me 297ms (tested on a real iPhone 11).
This is super fast and you don't even notice that. BUT using a customview with 1000 items will take 8158 ms (tested on a real iPhone 11)

So 8 seconds vs 0.3 seconds is a huge difference, right?
So how can we get the LongClick Event and know what row was pressed but still have a good performance?

After some research in the net and lot of tries, I found a way.

Add the items as usual BUT use in the customview ONLY an empty transparent panel. This will allow you to trigger the LongClick and performance is awesome.

    Dim starttime As Long = DateTime.Now
 
    itemList.Clear
    For i = 0 To 1000
        itemList.Add("Item " & i & "|this is the second line of item " & i)
    Next
 
    For i = 0 To itemList.Size - 1
        Dim str() As String = Regex.Split("\|", itemList.Get(i))
     
        Dim actString1, actString2 As AttributedString
        actString1.Initialize(str(0),Font.CreateNew(16),Colors.Black)
        actString2.Initialize(str(1),Font.CreateNew(10),Colors.ARGB(150,0,0,0))
     
        Dim tc As TableCell = mainTableView.AddTwoLines("","")
        tc.AccessoryType = tc.ACCESSORY_INDICATOR
        tc.Text = actString1
        tc.DetailText = actString2
        tc.Tag = i
        tc.ShowSelection = False
        tc.Bitmap = LoadBitmap(File.DirAssets,"Folder-icon.png")
        tc.AddActionButton("Delete",Colors.Red)
        tc.CustomView = CreateItem(i,maintableviewpnl.Width,mainTableView.RowHeight)
    Next

    mainTableView.ReloadAll
    Msgbox((DateTime.Now - starttime) & " ms","Time")

....

Private Sub CreateItem(index As Int, width As Float, height As Float) As Panel
    Dim p As Panel
    p.Initialize("inlinePnlRow")
    p.Width = width
    p.Height = height
    p.Color = Colors.Transparent
    p.Tag = index
   
    Return p
End Sub

In Debug Mode it took 427ms (vs 297 ms without customview and 8158 ms using only a cutomview with 1 imageview and 3 labels in it)

and in release mode it took 86 ms !!:



So if someone needs a Solution on how to get a LongClick on a Tableview but still keep the good performance this is the best solution i found.

Regards, ilan

BTW the ActionButton option work as usual with this solution.

 

[Erel]

I don't recommend using TableView at all.

Use xCustomListView. More powerful, easier to work with and much more expandable. Combined with PreoptimizedCLV you can create lists of any length and they will in a few milliseconds.

And almost forgot to write that it is cross platform.