UITableViewCell delete button without editing mode (like mail app)

Question

Not sure if this functionality is built into UITableViewCell, but I'd like to mimic the behavior of the mail app. I have a UITableView with dynamic cells. When the user performs a left swipe gesture, a delete button (I believe the button text in the mail app says archive instead of delete) should appear on the right-hand side of the cell.

I'm confortable with what to do after that to delete the row. I just need to make the button appear and disapper should the user swipe right OR tap anywhere else in the UITableView.

I would prefer to do this without adding an 'Edit' UINavigationItem button and putting the tableView in edit mode as per the "Table View Programming Guide", but appreciate the use of any built in methods.

Thanks.

Matt Long Matt Long · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-06T16:18:23

The -tableView:canEditRowAtIndexPath: delegate won't cause the button to display on swipe. You use it to determine which rows you want to allow to be edited (deleted) and can just leave it unimplemented if you want to allow all rows to be edited. To get the delete button to show up when you swipe without putting the table view in edit mode, however, you need to implement:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView 
                  commitEditingStyle:(UITableViewCellEditingStyle)editingStyle
                   forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    if (editingStyle == UITableViewCellEditingStyleDelete) {
        // Get the object you want to remove from your 
        // collection and delete it here.
    }
}

UITableViewCell delete button without editing mode (like mail app)

2 Answers