AEErrorCell

Display errors with one line of code

If you're using a UITableView to display data, you probably need a way to handle errors non-invasively (that is, without throwing an alert into the user's face). After tiring of creating a custom cell for each time I ran into this problem, I created AEErrorCell, a reusable class to display an error in a UITableViewCell.

How to use it

From tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:, return a cell like this:

return [AEErrorCell errorCellWithStyle:AEErrorCellStyleSimple
                                 error:error];

From tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:, return the height:

return [AEErrorCell rowHeightForStyle:AEErrorCellStyleSimple];

What do I get?

A cell displaying the [NSError localizedDescription] property in bold text, and the localizedRecoverySuggestion property in smaller gray type (if it is non-nil).

Getting a Retry button

You can also use AEErrorCellStyleRetryButton, in which case the cell will display a simple "retry" button. You can access the button using the retryButton property; you probably want to add an action to the button like this:

[[errorCell retryButton] addTarget:self 
                            action:@selector(retry) 
                  forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

That's all folks...

That's all it does (really). BSD Licensed so you can use it as you like. Suggestions for improvement (and pull requests) welcome!