iOS 7 Programming Cookbook

4.10. Displaying a Refresh Control for Table Views

Problem

You want to display a nice refresh UI control on top of your table views that allows your users to intuitively pull down the table view in order to update its contents. An example of a refresh control is shown in Figure 4-24.

Figure 4-24. A refresh control is displayed on top of a table view

Solution

Simply create a table view controller (as discussed in Recipe 4.9) and set its refreshControl property to a new instance of UIRefreshControl class, as shown here:

- (id)initWithStyle:(UITableViewStyle)style{
    self = [super initWithStyle:style];
    if (self) {

        [self.tableView registerClass:[UITableViewCell class]
               forCellReuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

        self.allTimes = [NSMutableArray arrayWithObject:[NSDate date]];

        /* Create the refresh control */
        self.refreshControl = [[UIRefreshControl alloc] init];
        self.refreshControl = self.refreshControl;
        [self.refreshControl addTarget:self
                                action:@selector(handleRefresh:)
                      forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];

    }
    return self;
}

Discussion

Refresh controls are simple visual indicators that appear on top of table views and tell the user that something is about to get updated. For instance, prior to iOS 6, in order to refresh your mailbox in the Mail app, you had to press a refresh button. In the new iOS, now you can simply drag the list of your emails down, as if you wanted to see what’s above there ...