Creating Smooth Animations in UITableViews with Swift

Animations are a crucial aspect of creating engaging and visually appealing mobile applications. In iOS development, UITableViews are commonly used to display lists of content, and adding animations to these tables can significantly enhance the user experience. In this blog, we’ll explore a Swift code snippet that enables smooth animations for UITableViews.

Location 360

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​The Code

​Let's start by taking a closer look at the provided Swift code:

​Explaining the Code

AnimationStyle Enum

​The code begins by defining an AnimationStyle enum. This enum encapsulates three animation styles: horizontal, vertical, and fade. Each style has associated properties for duration and delay, specifying how long the animation should take and the delay before starting, respectively.

AnimatableCell Protocol​

​The AnimatableCell protocol is introduced. It extends UITableViewCell and requires conforming cells to implement the animate(_:size:) method. This method defines how each cell should animate based on the chosen AnimationStyle and the size of the table view.

AnimatableCell Extension

​An extension for AnimatableCell provides a default implementation of the animate(_:size:) method. It sets the cell's transformation (position or opacity) according to the selected AnimationStyle.

UITableView Extension

The most critical part of this code is the extension for UITableView. It adds a new method called reloadWithAnimation(_:) which allows you to reload the table view with a specified animation style. Here's how it works:

1. It first reloads the table view data using reloadData().
2. It triggers a haptic feedback using UIDevice.playHapticImpact(with:), which can provide subtle tactile feedback to the user.
3. It calculates the size of the table view and retrieves the visible cells.
4. For each visible cell, it checks if it conforms to the AnimatableCell protocol. If so, it calls the animate(_:size:)method to set the initial animation state for the cell.
5. It then animates the cell’s transformation back to its identity (initial) state with a duration, delay, and animation options defined by the selected AnimationStyle.

​Implementing the Code

To use this code in your iOS app, follow these steps:

1. Copy the provided code into your project, or create a new Swift file and paste it there.
2. Make sure your custom table view cells conform to the AnimatableCell protocol.
3. Whenever you want to reload your table view with an animation, simply call the reloadWithAnimation(_:)method on your table view instance, specifying the desired animation style.

For example:

This will reload the table view with a vertical animation for each visible cell.
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Animations can significantly enhance the user experience in iOS apps. This Swift code snippet provides a convenient way to add smooth and engaging animations to your UITableViews. By defining different animation styles and encapsulating animation logic in a protocol and extension, you can easily integrate animations into your app's user interface, making it more interactive and visually appealing.