I am using Swift to build an iOS application for the Hospital I work at.
Somehow, in a specific feature I have to put a UICollectionView
inside the UICollectionViewCell
. The one I want to achieve was for every content of the parent UICollectionView
(vertical scrolling) would have several children (Which can be scrolled horizontal) depending on the parent row.
For illustration, I have to display list of doctors (name & photo) and then I have to display each of the practice schedule of them below their name and photo. The practice schedule would vary depending on each doctor. So, I have to put it inside the UICollectionView
.
I have tried several solutions that I found on the web, but I still cannot approach it.
The most problem that I can't solve was: I don't know where is the place in the code to load the child data source (doctor schedule) and when I could load it, because I can't have two functions like below:
collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell
this is the one I want to achieve
the UIImage
and doctor name (UILabel
) was in the parent UICollectionViewCell
(scroll vertically), and then everything in the box (practice day n practice time) are the child UICollectionView
(scroll horizontally)
PS: there are many doctors, and each of the doctor has several practice day.
please help me how to do this
If you really want to insert an collectionView inside a collectionViewCell then there is a pretty simple step. Create an instance of UICollectionView and add it the collectionViewCell. You can use this example if you like.
//
// ViewController.swift
// StackOverFlowAnswer
//
// Created by BIKRAM BHANDARI on 18/6/17.
// Copyright © 2017 BIKRAM BHANDARI. All rights reserved.
//
import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, UICollectionViewDelegate, UICollectionViewDataSource, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {
let cellId = "CellId"; //Unique cell id
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
view.backgroundColor = .red; //just to test
collectionView.register(Cell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: cellId) //register collection view cell class
setupViews(); //setup all views
}
func setupViews() {
view.addSubview(collectionView); // add collection view to view controller
collectionView.delegate = self; // set delegate
collectionView.dataSource = self; //set data source
collectionView.leftAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leftAnchor).isActive = true; //set the location of collection view
collectionView.rightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.rightAnchor).isActive = true; // top anchor of collection view
collectionView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.heightAnchor).isActive = true; // height
collectionView.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.widthAnchor).isActive = true; // width
}
let collectionView: UICollectionView = { // collection view to be added to view controller
let cv = UICollectionView(frame: .zero, collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewFlowLayout()); //zero size with flow layout
cv.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false; //set it to false so that we can suppy constraints
cv.backgroundColor = .yellow; // test
return cv;
}();
//deque cell
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: cellId, for: indexPath);
// cell.backgroundColor = .blue;
return cell;
}
// number of rows
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return 5;
}
//size of each CollecionViewCell
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, layout collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewLayout, sizeForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGSize {
return CGSize(width: view.frame.width, height: 200);
}
}
// first UICollectionViewCell
class Cell: UICollectionViewCell, UICollectionViewDataSource, UICollectionViewDelegate, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {
let cellId = "CellId"; // same as above unique id
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame);
setupViews();
collectionView.register(UICollectionViewCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: cellId); //register custom UICollectionViewCell class.
// Here I am not using any custom class
}
func setupViews(){
addSubview(collectionView);
collectionView.delegate = self;
collectionView.dataSource = self;
collectionView.leftAnchor.constraint(equalTo: leftAnchor).isActive = true;
collectionView.rightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: rightAnchor).isActive = true;
collectionView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: topAnchor).isActive = true;
collectionView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: bottomAnchor).isActive = true;
}
let collectionView: UICollectionView = {
let layout = UICollectionViewFlowLayout();
layout.scrollDirection = .horizontal; //set scroll direction to horizontal
let cv = UICollectionView(frame: .zero, collectionViewLayout: layout);
cv.backgroundColor = .blue; //testing
cv.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false;
return cv;
}();
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: cellId, for: indexPath);
cell.backgroundColor = .red;
return cell;
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return 5;
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, layout collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewLayout, sizeForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGSize {
return CGSize(width: self.frame.width, height: self.frame.height - 10);
}
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
}
There are multiple ways to tackle the problem of a horizontal collection inside another a vertical list collection.
The simplest would be to make the ViewController you are presenting the main UICollectionView to the dataSouce and delegate for both collection views. You can set the collection view inside the cell also to be served from here.
This article about placing collection view inside a table view explains the problem in a much elaborate way and the code for the same can be found here.
Add collectionView in collection view cell , and add delagate methods in collectionviewclass.swift. Then pass list you want to show in cell in collectionview's cellforrowatindexpath. If you didn't success on implimenting it then let me know . i will provide you code as i have already implemented it in that way.