Custom Table View Cell Example

Tested with Xcode 9 (edit also tested on 11 / 12 Beta 2) and Swift 4 (edit: also tested on 5.2)

The asker of the original question has solved their problem. I am adding this answer as a mini self contained example project for others who are trying to do the same thing.

The finished project should look like this:

Create a new project

It can be just a Single View Application.

Add the code

Add a new Swift file to your project. Name it MyCustomCell.swift. This class will hold the outlets for the views that you add to your cell in the storyboard.

import UIKit
class MyCustomCell: UITableViewCell {
    @IBOutlet weak var myView: UIView!
    @IBOutlet weak var myCellLabel: UILabel!
}

We will connect these outlets later.

Open ViewController.swift and make sure you have the following content:

import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource {
    
    // These strings will be the data for the table view cells
    let animals: [String] = ["Horse", "Cow", "Camel", "Sheep", "Goat"]
    
    // These are the colors of the square views in our table view cells.
    // In a real project you might use UIImages.
    let colors = [UIColor.blue, UIColor.yellow, UIColor.magenta, UIColor.red, UIColor.brown]
    
    // Don't forget to enter this in IB also
    let cellReuseIdentifier = "cell"
    
    @IBOutlet var tableView: UITableView!
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        
        tableView.delegate = self
        tableView.dataSource = self
    }
    
    // number of rows in table view
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return self.animals.count
    }
    
    // create a cell for each table view row
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
        
        let cell:MyCustomCell = self.tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: cellReuseIdentifier) as! MyCustomCell
        
        cell.myView.backgroundColor = self.colors[indexPath.row]
        cell.myCellLabel.text = self.animals[indexPath.row]
        
        return cell
    }
    
    // method to run when table view cell is tapped
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
        print("You tapped cell number \(indexPath.row).")
    }
}

Setup the storyboard

Add a Table View to your view controller and use auto layout to pin it to the four sides of the View Controller. Then drag a Table View Cell onto the Table View. And then drag a View and a Label onto the Prototype cell. (You may need to select the Table View Cell and manually set the Row Height to something taller in the Size inspector so that you have more room to work with.) Use auto layout to fix the View and the Label how you want them arranged within the content view of the Table View Cell. For example, I made my View be 100×100.

Other IB settings

Custom class name and Identifier

Select the Table View Cell and set the custom class to be MyCustomCell (the name of the class in the Swift file we added). Also set the Identifier to be cell (the same string that we used for the cellReuseIdentifier in the code above.

Hook Up the Outlets

• Control drag from the Table View in the storyboard to the tableView variable in the ViewController code.
• Do the same for the View and the Label in your Prototype cell to the myView and myCellLabel variables in the MyCustomCell class.

Finished

That’s it. You should be able to run your project now.

Notes

• The colored views that I used here could be replaced with anything. An obvious example would be a UIImageView.
• If you are just trying to get a TableView to work, see this even more basic example.
• If you need a Table View with variable cell heights, see this example.