UITableViewCell and the Interface Builder

Question

I'm trying to use the Interface Builder to create a UITableViewCell but am having problems.
I can create the UITableViewClass in my .xib file, connect the reference outlet and reuseIdentifier using the inspector. The problems occurs when I try and render the cell with this method...
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
Since the interface builder creates the TableViewCell automatically, I should be able to call...
UITableViewCell *cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero reuseIdentifier:@"priceCell"] autorelease];
..from inside the tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath method and get that cell instance. But none of changes (Color, accessory view, etc...) I made to the table view come through.
Has anyone got UITableViewCells created in the interface builder to work?

Answer 1

Just an update to inform people of some of my findings.
I had originally, before gkstuart's post, had added a UITableViewCell instance as a child of my view in IB. I then tried to use the cell via an IBOutlet in the UITableView in my view. This is when I was getting a completely blank screen when running my application. I then adopted gkstuart's idea and created a cell factory class, but without thinking, I used the same cell instance on each call to my 'newCell' method. Once I updated the 'newCell' method to load the nib file on each call to 'newCell' everything seems to work fine. As a note, the nib file loaded by 'newCell' is a simple nib file containing only my custom cell definition. It does not contain any views. Gkstuart's method of loading custom cells is unfortunate, because you can't seem to use the reusable cell theory when working with cells defined in IB. This is obviously something that needs work on Apple's side.
As a test, I removed my custom cell definition from my original view nib. I then added a new top level instance of UITableViewCell, by dragging the UITableViewCell item to the window with the File Owner icon. After updating the custom cell definition with the appropriate class and outlets, I tried my original method again. I no longer get a completely blank screen, but it still doesn't work right. I now get a single cell in my table view, which happens to be the last cell in the list. When looking at it with the debugger, dequeueReusableCell never returns my cell instance so I am reusing and returning the same cell for each call to 'cellAtIndexPath'. I tried to manually call the cells 'prepareForReuse' method but this didn't seem to have any affect.
So at this point, I am going to continue with the cell factory methodology until Apple either fixes the current problem or informs people on the proper way to use IB with custom UITableViewCell's.
As a side note, I am going to start blogging about my experiences with the iPhone SDK over at iphonesdktrialsandtribulations.blogger.com.