Prevent indentation of UITableViewCell (contentView) while editing

Question

Is it possible to keep the contentView.frame always the same, regardless of tableView.editing? I already tried to override layoutSubviews

Answer 1

Luckily, iOS is perfectly equipped to keep whatever value constant.

This (ugly) piece of code will keep the frame fixed to whatever value has origin.x==0. This is easily adapted to your particular needs.

// put this in your UITableViewCell subclass
-(void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context
{
    NSLog(@"observed value for kp %@ changed: %@",keyPath,change);
    if ( [keyPath isEqual:@"frame"] && object == self.contentView )
    {
        CGRect newFrame = self.contentView.frame;
        CGRect oldFrame = [[change objectForKey:NSKeyValueChangeOldKey] CGRectValue];
        NSLog(@"frame old: %@  new: %@",NSStringFromCGRect(oldFrame),NSStringFromCGRect(newFrame));

        if ( newFrame.origin.x != 0 ) self.contentView.frame = oldFrame;
    }
}

// add the cell as an observer for frame changes, somewhere in initialization:
[self.contentView addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"frame" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionOld context:nil];

// IMPORTANT: remove the cell as an observer in -dealloc:
[self.contentView removeObserver:self forKeyPath:@"frame"];

This will only allow the frame to change to values with an origin.x==0. Remove the NSLog() lines for Release builds.

I have tested this for a few minutes and haven't seen any side effect.