iPhone UITableView. How do turn on the single letter alphabetical list like the Music App?

Question

In the iPhone music app, selecting Artist, Songs, or Albums presents a tableView with a verticl list of single letters at the righthand side of the UI that enables rapid scr

Answer 1

A bunch of people asked if it was possible to do this without sections. I wanted the same thing and I found a solution which might be a little shady and doesn't return a value to sectionForSectionIndexTitle but if you are in a corner and don't want to have to make a section for every letter of the alphabet this is a sure fix. Sorry to any code Nazis in advance. :P

- (NSArray *)sectionIndexTitlesForTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    if (thisTableDataIsShowing)
    {
        NSMutableArray *charactersForSort = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
        for (NSDictionary *item in d_itemsInTable)
        {
            if (![charactersForSort containsObject:[[item valueForKey:@"character_field_to_sort_by"] substringToIndex:1]])
            {
                [charactersForSort addObject:[[item valueForKey:@"character_field_to_sort_by"] substringToIndex:1]];
            }
        }
        return charactersForSort;
    }
    return nil;
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView sectionForSectionIndexTitle:(NSString *)title atIndex:(NSInteger)index {
    BOOL found = NO;
    NSInteger b = 0;
    for (NSDictionary *item in d_itemsInTable)
    {
        if ([[[item valueForKey:@"character_field_to_sort_by"] substringToIndex:1] isEqualToString:title])
            if (!found)
            {
                [d_yourTableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:[NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:b inSection:0] atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionTop animated:NO];
                found = YES;
            }
        b++;
    }
}

It works great if you are getting a large amount of data and sectioning it would take a bunch of work. :) Tried to use generic variables so you knew what I was doing. d_itemsInTable is an NSArray of NSDictionaries that I'm listing out to the UITableView.

Answer 2

Something else you have to consider is localizing the sections for each language. After digging around a bit, I found UILocalizedIndexedCollation to be quite useful:

- (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    return [[[UILocalizedIndexedCollation currentCollation] sectionTitles] objectAtIndex:section];
}

- (NSArray *)sectionIndexTitlesForTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    return [[UILocalizedIndexedCollation currentCollation] sectionIndexTitles];
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView sectionForSectionIndexTitle:(NSString *)title atIndex:(NSInteger)index {
    return [[UILocalizedIndexedCollation currentCollation] sectionForSectionIndexTitleAtIndex:index];
}

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uilocalizedindexedcollation

Answer 3

Supply your own index characters:

- (NSArray *)sectionIndexTitlesForTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    return[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"a", @"e", @"i", @"m", @"p", nil];
}

and then:

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView sectionForSectionIndexTitle:(NSString
    *)title atIndex:(NSInteger)index {
        return <yourSectionIndexForTheSectionForSectionIndexTitle >;
}

You will need sections.