Ad Banner blocks bottom of UITableView

Question

This is a UI layout issue. I need to place banner ads on the bottom of all views in an iPhone app. The banner ads are shared and only load if they are available.

Two UIViewControllers contain UITableViews that occupy the full screen. I am having two related issues that I don't know how to address. When the banner ad loads, it hides the bottom part of the table view, blocking the user from being able to select the any of the last couple of cells. Additionally, the right side index is no longer centered and sits lower than it should.

Apparently, Apple will reject an app if there is blank white space in the event that an ad does not load (correct me if I'm wrong on this), so there is a need to have the tableviews go full length if no ad is available.

Has anybody addressed this issue? What might be a best practice to overcome this? Thanks!

You can adjust table view height. – Xhacker Liu Jan 10 '14 at 18:45 — Xhacker Liu, Jan 10 '14 at 18:45
Unfortunately I've tried it with no luck – Pheepster Jan 10 '14 at 19:31 — Pheepster, Jan 10 '14 at 19:31

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 31 '14 at 03:06

I figured out how to do that for usual UITableViewController without using custom UIViewController with UITableView inside. The trick is to dynamically adjust position of banner view to make it always be on the bottom of visible area.

You have just add your banner view as subview and adjust table insets accordingly:

- (void)viewDidLoad 
{
        [super viewDidLoad];

        ...

        //init banner and set it's frame (here we use 320x50 banner) 
        self.bannerView = [[UIView alloc] init];
        self.bannerView.frame = CGRectMake(0, self.view.frame.size.height - 50, 320, 50);

        //add as subview
        [self.view addSubview:self.bannerView];

        //set proper bottom inset depending on your banner height
        self.tableView.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 0, 50, 0);
}

When the table is scrolled you need to adjust banner position depending on content offset:

- (void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView
{
    //refresh banner frame during the scrolling
    CGRect bannerFrame = self.bannerView.frame;
    bannerFrame.origin.y = self.view.frame.size.height - 50 + self.tableView.contentOffset.y;
    self.bannerView.frame = bannerFrame;
}

Worked like a charm, though you may need to take a navbar into account if you're using one. — Jeff Schmitz, Oct 10 '14 at 21:13

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 11 '14 at 17:06

After some research I discovered how to address this.

When an ad banner gets loaded after the the table view has initialized, it can cover the bottom part of the table view making those hidden cells not selectable. A user can scroll the view up high enough to see them, but when the scroll is released, the table view bounces back to its original and it is impossible to select those bottom-most cells. To overcome this this, I did the following:

CGFloat padding = self.view.frame.size.height - (self.view.frame.size.height - (SharedAdBannerView.frame.size.height + self.toolbar.frame.size.height + 20));

UIEdgeInsets bottomPadding = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 0, padding, 0);
[self.riversTableView setContentInset:bottomPadding];
[self.riversTableView setScrollIndicatorInsets:bottomPadding];

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 10 '14 at 19:45

You cannot use UITableViewController if you want to have other views beside the table view. In a UITableViewController the view property of the superclass UIViewController is the table view, so it occupies the whole screen by default.

The way to go here is to use a plain UIViewController instead and add both the table view and the banner view as subviews. Use storyboard's auto layout feature to figure out the exact geometry according to the constraints you set. The table view can expand automatically when the banner is empty.

You make the table view work by declaring the controller class compliant with the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate protocols and setting the class as the delegate of the table view.

Sorry, I should have stated better in my post. I am using a UIViewController with a UITableView in it — Pheepster, Jan 10 '14 at 20:11

Ad Banner blocks bottom of UITableView

3 Answers3