UICollectionView in a UICollectionViewCell

Question

I am interested in having a collectionview as a part of a collection view cell but for some reason cannot figure out how this would be done. Where would I implement the necessary methods for the cells collectionview?

Answer 1

There's an article that Ash Furrow wrote that explains how to put an UICollectionView inside an UITableViewCell. It's basically the same idea when using it inside an UICollectionViewCell.

Answer 2

Everything is done programatically. No storyboards.

I added a UICollectionView inside my UICollectionViewCell. I also show how to add again a UICollectionViewCell inside the created UICollectionView to have this result

import UIKit

class CategoryCell: UICollectionViewCell, UICollectionViewDataSource, UICollectionViewDelegate, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {

    private let cellId = "cell"

    override init(frame: CGRect) {
        super.init(frame: frame)
        setupViews()
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }

    let appsCollectionView: UICollectionView = {
        let layout = UICollectionViewFlowLayout()
        let collectionView = UICollectionView(frame: .zero, collectionViewLayout: layout)
        return collectionView
    }()

    func setupViews() {
        backgroundColor = .blue

        addSubview(appsCollectionView)

        appsCollectionView.delegate = self
        appsCollectionView.dataSource = self
        appsCollectionView.register(AppCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: cellId)

        addConstrainstWithFormat("H:|-8-[v0]-8-|", views: appsCollectionView)
        addConstrainstWithFormat("V:|[v0]|", views: appsCollectionView)

    }

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return 5
    }

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
        let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: cellId, for: indexPath)
        return cell
    }
}

class AppCell: UICollectionViewCell {
    override init(frame: CGRect) {
        super.init(frame: frame)
        setupViews()
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }

    func setupViews(){
        backgroundColor = .red
    }
}

My UICollectionViewController

import UIKit

class FeaturedAppsController: UICollectionViewController, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {

    let cellId = "cell"

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.

        collectionView?.backgroundColor = .white
        collectionView?.register(CategoryCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: cellId)
    }

    override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return 3
    }

    override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
        let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: cellId, for: indexPath)
        return cell
    }

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, layout collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewLayout, sizeForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGSize {
        return CGSize(view.frame.width, 150)
    }

}

The whole explanation can be found and was developed by "Let´s build that app": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko9oNhlTwH0&list=PL0dzCUj1L5JEXct3-OV6itP7Kz3tRDmma

Answer 3

This is too late for this answer but it might help others. This is an example of UICollectionView inside a UICollectionViewCell.

Lets start by having a mainCollectionView. Then on each cell of this collection create and initialize a new UICollectionView and right place to do that is in this following delegate of UICollectionView

func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, willDisplayCell cell: UICollectionViewCell, forItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath)

e.g I initialize the MainCollectionViewCell here and then MainCollectionViewCell handles the logic to create a new UICollectionView

guard let collectionViewCell = cell as? MainCollectionViewCell else { return }

    collectionViewCell.delegate = self

    let dataProvider = ChildCollectionViewDataSource()
    dataProvider.data = data[indexPath.row] as NSArray

    let delegate = ChildCollectionViewDelegate()

    collectionViewCell.initializeCollectionViewWithDataSource(dataProvider, delegate: delegate, forRow: indexPath.row)

    collectionViewCell.collectionViewOffset = storedOffsets[indexPath.row] ?? 0

Here is the initializer on MainCollectionViewCell that creates a new UICollectionView

func initializeCollectionViewWithDataSource<D: protocol<UICollectionViewDataSource>,E: protocol<UICollectionViewDelegate>>(dataSource: D, delegate :E, forRow row: Int) {

    self.collectionViewDataSource = dataSource

    self.collectionViewDelegate = delegate

    let flowLayout = UICollectionViewFlowLayout()
    flowLayout.scrollDirection = .Horizontal

    let collectionView = UICollectionView(frame: self.bounds, collectionViewLayout: flowLayout)
    collectionView.registerClass(UICollectionViewCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: reuseChildCollectionViewCellIdentifier)
    collectionView.backgroundColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    collectionView.dataSource = self.collectionViewDataSource
    collectionView.delegate = self.collectionViewDelegate
    collectionView.tag = row

    self.addSubview(collectionView)

    self.collectionView = collectionView

    collectionView.reloadData()
}

Hope that helps !!

I did an example for this and put in on github. It demonstrates the use UICollectionView inside a UICollectionViewCell.

https://github.com/irfanlone/Collection-View-in-a-collection-view-cell