UITableView separator line disappears when selecting cells in iOS7

Question

In my tableView I set a separator line between cells. I am allowing selection of multiple cells. Here\'s my code for setting selected cell background color:

Answer 1

In iOS 14, Apple has FINALLY made this less painful.

If you want to...

• ...be able to select rows (for example in edit mode)
• ...prevent the default gray or blue cell highlight color
• ...keep the default system separator views

...this will help you. In your UITableViewCell subclass, put this into the initializer:

override init(style: UITableViewCell.CellStyle, reuseIdentifier: String?) {
    super.init(style: style, reuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier)
    
    // Prevent cell highlighting while preserving selectability and separator views
    if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
        var backgroundConfig = UIBackgroundConfiguration.listPlainCell()
        backgroundConfig.backgroundColor = .clear
        backgroundConfiguration = backgroundConfig
    } else {
        selectedBackgroundView = {
            let bgView = UIView(frame: .zero)
            bgView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
            bgView.backgroundColor = .clear
            return bgView
        }()
    }
}

If you're only targeting iOS 14+ you can leave out the else block and you're done. If you are also targeting iOS 13 and below, you'll also need to override layoutSubviews to keep the separator view from disappearing (thanks to this comment: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47573308/171933). This will do the trick (also in your UITableViewCell subclass):

override func layoutSubviews() {
    super.layoutSubviews()

    if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
        // no op
    } else {
        // Setting a custom selectedBackgroundView causes the system to hide the
        // separatorView. If we want to have the separator, we need to show it again.
        subviews.forEach { view in
            if type(of: view).description() == "_UITableViewCellSeparatorView" {
                view.alpha = 1.0
            }
        }
    }
}

Enjoy.