Use tableView: willDisplayHeaderView:
to customize the view when it is about to be displayed.
This gives you the advantage of being able to take the view that was already created for the header view and extend it, instead of having to recreate the whole header view yourself.
Here is an example that colors the header section based on a BOOL and adds a detail text element to the header.
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section
{
// view.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0.825 alpha:1.0]; // gray
// view.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.825 green:0.725 blue:0.725 alpha:1.0]; // reddish
// view.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.925 green:0.725 blue:0.725 alpha:1.0]; // pink
// Conditionally tint the header view
BOOL isMyThingOnOrOff = [self isMyThingOnOrOff];
if (isMyThingOnOrOff) {
view.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.725 green:0.925 blue:0.725 alpha:1.0];
} else {
view.tintColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.925 green:0.725 blue:0.725 alpha:1.0];
}
/* Add a detail text label (which has its own view to the section header… */
CGFloat xOrigin = 100; // arbitrary
CGFloat hInset = 20;
UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(xOrigin + hInset, 5, tableView.frame.size.width - xOrigin - (hInset * 2), 22)];
label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentRight;
[label setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica-Bold" size:14.0]
label.text = @"Hi. I'm the detail text";
[view addSubview:label];
}