[ios] How to make a simple collection view with Swift

I'm trying to learn how to use UICollectionView. The documentation is a little hard to understand and the tutorials that I found were either in Objective C or long complicated projects.

When I was learning how to use UITableView, We ? Swift's How to make a simple tableview with iOS 8 and Swift had a very basic setup and explanation to get me going. Is there anything like this for UICollectionView?

The answer below is my attempt to learn to do this.

UICollectionView is same as UITableView but it gives us the additional functionality of simply creating a grid view, which is a bit problematic in UITableView. It will be a very long post I mention a link from where you will get everything in simple steps.

For swift 4.2 --

//MARK: UICollectionViewDataSource

func numberOfSectionsInCollectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView) -> Int {
    return 1     //return number of sections in collection view
}

func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
    return 10    //return number of rows in section
}

func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
    let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: "collectionCell", for: indexPath as IndexPath)
    configureCell(cell: cell, forItemAtIndexPath: indexPath)
    return cell      //return your cell
}

func configureCell(cell: UICollectionViewCell, forItemAtIndexPath: NSIndexPath) {
    cell.backgroundColor = UIColor.black


    //Customise your cell

}

func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, viewForSupplementaryElementOfKind kind: String, atIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UICollectionReusableView {
    let view =  collectionView.dequeueReusableSupplementaryView(ofKind: UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader, withReuseIdentifier: "collectionCell", for: indexPath as IndexPath) as UICollectionReusableView
    return view
}

//MARK: UICollectionViewDelegate
func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
    // When user selects the cell
}

func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, didDeselectItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
    // When user deselects the cell
}

UICollectionView implementation is quite interesting. You can use the simple source code and watch a video tutorial using these links :

https://github.com/Ady901/Demo02CollectionView.git

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SrgvZF67Yw

extension ViewController : UICollectionViewDataSource {

    func numberOfSections(in collectionView: UICollectionView) -> Int {
        return 2
    }

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return nameArr.count
    }

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
        let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: "DummyCollectionCell", for: indexPath) as! DummyCollectionCell
        cell.titleLabel.text = nameArr[indexPath.row]
        cell.userImageView.backgroundColor = .blue
        return cell
    }

}

extension ViewController : UICollectionViewDelegate {

    func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
        let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Hi", message: "\(nameArr[indexPath.row])", preferredStyle: .alert)
        let action = UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .default, handler: nil)
        alert.addAction(action)
        self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

}

Delegates and Datasources of UICollectionView

//MARK: UICollectionViewDataSource

override func numberOfSectionsInCollectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView) -> Int {
    return 1     //return number of sections in collection view
}

override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
    return 10    //return number of rows in section
}

override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
    let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCellWithReuseIdentifier("collectionCell", forIndexPath: indexPath)
    configureCell(cell, forItemAtIndexPath: indexPath)
    return cell      //return your cell
}

func configureCell(cell: UICollectionViewCell, forItemAtIndexPath: NSIndexPath) {
    cell.backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor()


    //Customise your cell

}

override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, viewForSupplementaryElementOfKind kind: String, atIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UICollectionReusableView {
    let view =  collectionView.dequeueReusableSupplementaryViewOfKind(UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader, withReuseIdentifier: "collectionCell", forIndexPath: indexPath) as UICollectionReusableView
    return view
}

//MARK: UICollectionViewDelegate
override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
      // When user selects the cell
}

override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, didDeselectItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
     // When user deselects the cell
}