UIRefreshControl without UITableViewController

Question

Just curious, as it doesn't immediately seem possible, but is there a sneaky way to leverage the new iOS 6 UIRefreshControl class without using a UITableViewController subclass?

I often use a UIViewController with a UITableView subview and conform to UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate rather than using a UITableViewController outright.

Answer 1

What you would try is use container view inside ViewController you are using. you can define clean UITableViewController subclass with dedicated tableview and place that in the ViewController.

Answer 2

Keller's first suggestion causes a strange bug in iOS 7 where the inset of the table is increased after the view controller reappears. Changing to the second answer, using the uitableviewcontroller, fixed things for me.

Answer 3

For Swift 2.2 .

First make UIRefreshControl() .

var refreshControl : UIRefreshControl!

In your viewDidLoad() method add:

refreshControl = UIRefreshControl()
    refreshControl.attributedTitle = NSAttributedString(string: "Refreshing..")
    refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(YourUIViewController.refresh(_:)), forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.ValueChanged)
    self.tableView.addSubview(refreshControl)

And make refresh function

func refresh(refreshControl: UIRefreshControl) {

    // do something ...

    // reload tableView
    self.tableView.reloadData()

    // End refreshing
    refreshControl.endRefreshing()
}

Answer 4

Try delaying the call to the refreshControl -endRefresh method by a fraction of a second after the tableView reloads its contents, either by using NSObject's -performSelector:withObject:afterDelay: or GCD's dispatch_after.

I created a category on UIRefreshControl for this:

@implementation UIRefreshControl (Delay)

- (void)endRefreshingAfterDelay:(NSTimeInterval)delay {
    dispatch_time_t popTime = dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, (int64_t)(delay * NSEC_PER_SEC));
    dispatch_after(popTime, dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void){
        [self endRefreshing];
    });
}

@end

I tested it and this also works on Collection Views. I've noticed that a delay as small as 0.01 seconds is enough:

// My data refresh process here while the refresh control 'isRefreshing'
[self.tableView reloadData];
[self.refreshControl endRefreshingAfterDelay:.01];

Answer 5

Adding the refresh control as a subview creates an empty space above section headers.

Instead, I embedded a UITableViewController into my UIViewController, then changed my tableView property to point towards the embedded one, and viola! Minimal code changes. :-)

Steps:

1. Create a new UITableViewController in Storyboard and embed it into your original UIViewController
2. Replace @IBOutlet weak var tableView: UITableView! with the one from the newly embedded UITableViewController, as shown below

---

class MyViewController: UIViewController, UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate {
    weak var tableView: UITableView!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        let tableViewController = self.childViewControllers.first as! UITableViewController
        tableView = tableViewController.tableView
        tableView.dataSource = self
        tableView.delegate = self

        // Now we can (properly) add the refresh control
        let refreshControl = UIRefreshControl()
        refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: "handleRefresh:", forControlEvents: .ValueChanged)
        tableViewController.refreshControl = refreshControl
    }

    ...
}

Answer 6

It turns out you can use the following when you use a UIViewController with a UITableView subview and conform to UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate:

self.refreshControl = [[UIRefreshControl alloc]init];
[self.refreshControl addTarget:self action:@selector(refresh:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];