iOS Searchdisplaycontroller Prevents Tableview from Background Color Change (Background Stays Gray)

iOS SearchDisplayController prevents tableview from background color change (background stays gray)

When using a UISearchDisplayController in a UITableViewController, it is very important to remember that you are dealing with two table views.

So when you drag a "Search Bar and Search Display Controller" into a UITableView (and assuming you are doing this drag in a UIStoryboard), you are actually added another UITableView that, when activated, must be managed by code in your UITableViewController file in the same manner as any other UITableView.

Consider this:

The UITableView that represents the complete data set can be called using self.tableView (or as you have written, the synthesised _tableView).

The UITableView that represents the filtered data set (filtered using your search criteria) can be called using self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView

If you'd like both your default UITableView and search UITableView background colour to display a black colour, I can suggest this code (works in a TVC in my app)...

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];

    [self.tableView setBackgroundView:nil];
    [self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];

    [self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView setBackgroundView:nil];
    [self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];
}

...

UPDATE

Now that I have finished my long-winded lecture, I agree that there is in fact a "bug" of sorts in Xcode. If you delete the original UISearchBar and then add a new one to a UITableViewController, before you connect it, do a Build & Run. A black background is visible below and above the table view. It is only after you set the UISearchBar as an outlet for the UISearchDisplayController that the black background is "replaced" with a grey background.

So the solution...

With thanks to Olof's answer to Different background colors for the top and bottom of a UITableView.

REPLACE the code I have written above with this code, at the end of your viewDidLoad method:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];

    ...<other code>...

    CGRect frame = self.tableView.bounds;
    frame.origin.y = -frame.size.height;
    UIView* viewBackgroundBlack = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
    [viewBackgroundBlack setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];
    [self.tableView addSubview:viewBackgroundBlack];

    [self.tableView setBackgroundView:nil];
    [self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];

    [self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView setBackgroundView:nil];
    [self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blackColor]];
}

Different background colors for the top and bottom of a UITableView

The easiest and most lightweight way to solve this problem is:

1. Set the background color of the table view to whatever you want - in your case, white.
2. Put the search bar view inside a container view. Set the table view's header view to this container view (instead of the search bar view itself, which is probably what you were doing previously).
3. In that container view, add another subview with frame equal to a rect like (0, -480, 320, 480), and set the background color of that subview to whatever color you want - in your case, grayish.

That should be all you need to do. I just did this myself and achieved the look I wanted, exactly the same as the Mail app. Using scrollViewDidScroll is a major waste of CPU resources, and subclassing UITableView is super messy, IMO.

UISearchDisplayController with ViewController issues

1. You have to set UIView background color to black (not just UITableView color).
2. You have to position your table view below UISearchBar, you can do this either programmatically or via IB. I recommend second option. Pretty easy.

tableView: didSelectRowAtIndexPath: looks awful if not setting the next viewcontroller's background color

The default background colour for your new viewController is clear, so when you do an animated push you can see through the new viewController temporarily as it pushes itself on top of the navigation stack.

Setting an opaque background colour will mean that your new VC is not transparent, and thus you won't be able to see through it to the VC underneath.

However, I'd recommend you set your backgroundColor in viewDidLoad of your new viewcontroller, instead of in the one that's doing the presenting (it's not really the responsibility of your presenting viewController to do that).

Search Bar background color Gray ios7

Try this:

if(IOS_7)
{
    self.searchBar.searchBarStyle = UISearchBarStyleMinimal;
}

UIViewController with UITableView and UISearchBar gap issue

The gap is occurring when setting UINavigationBar translucent property to NO. Setting it to YES resolve the issue. Animation is smooth again and there's no gap between UISearchBar and UITableView. I can't explain why, and it appears to be a bug on Apple side as it is easy to reproduce by creating a sample project.

Light gray background in bounce area of a UITableView

As of iOS 7, you can tinker this by changing the tableview background view.

[self.tableView setBackgroundView:view];

make the view's background colour the same as your parent view colour.

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