How to animate UITableViewCell height using auto-layout?

Question

There are lot of similar questions on Stack Overflow about UITableViewCell height animation, but nothing works for new iOS8 auto-layout driven table view. My is

Answer 1

The following worked for me:

Preparation:

1. On viewDidLoad tell the table view to use self-sizing cells:

   tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension;
   tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 44; // Some average height of your cells
   

2. Add the constraints as you normally would, but add them to the cell's contentView!

Animate height changes:

Say you change a constraint's constant:

myConstraint.constant = newValue;

...or you add/remove constraints.

To animate this change, proceed as follows:

1. Tell the contentView to animate the change:

   [UIView animateWithDuration: 0.3 animations: ^{ [cell.contentView layoutIfNeeded] }]; // Or self.contentView if you're doing this from your own cell subclass
   

2. Then tell the table view to react to the height change with an animation

   [tableView beginUpdates];
   [tableView endUpdates];
   

The duration of 0.3 on the first step is what seems to be the duration UITableView uses for its animations when calling begin/endUpdates.

Bonus - change height without animation and without reloading the entire table:

If you want to do the same thing as above, but without an animation, then do this instead:

[cell.contentView layoutIfNeeded];
[UIView setAnimationsEnabled: FALSE];
[tableView beginUpdates];
[tableView endUpdates];
[UIView setAnimationsEnabled: TRUE];

Summary:

// Height changing code here:
// ...

if (animate) {
    [UIView animateWithDuration: 0.3 animations: ^{ [cell.contentView layoutIfNeeded]; }];
    [tableView beginUpdates];
    [tableView endUpdates];
}
else {
    [cell.contentView layoutIfNeeded];
    [UIView setAnimationsEnabled: FALSE];
    [tableView beginUpdates];
    [tableView endUpdates];
    [UIView setAnimationsEnabled: TRUE];
}

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You can check out my implementation of a cell that expands when the user selects it here (pure Swift & pure autolayout - truly the way of the future).