UITableView strategy for empty sections and adding rows inline with custom cell

Question

I'm working on an app and I'm running into some problems on how to work out this functionality. I've pieced a crude wireframe together:

Essentially, if no data exists in the section, I have a custom 'Empty data' cell display. In the numberOfRowsInSection delegate call, I had a simple test where if my array count is 0, return 1. I assume its hacky so if there is a better approach please let me know.

My problem is I also have a custom 'Input' cell that I want to appear inline in the section, replacing the 'Empty' cell. I was able to piece that together by adding a string to my data array, then calling the tableView insertRowsAtIndexPaths with some very crazy conditionals in my tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath: method.

What I can't get working is if a user cancels, rather than saving, I want the 'Input' cell to disappear and the 'Empty' cell to return. I can't just remove my custom string from my data array because tableView throws an error that my datasource count wasn't expected because I used the removeRowsAtIndexPaths to remove one row.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

the better approch would be dynamically hide the tableview and add a placeholderview -- I wouldnt 'misuse' the table view for that

the 'input view' and 'the empty cell' would be independent of a table