CodeSnack

MonoTouch 1.2 adds a new class called UITableViewSource that is intended to reduce some of the code clutter that is encountered when using TableViews in MonoTouch.  The UITableViewSource class combines UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDataSource into one convenient class that contains the methods of both.  This results in a much closer approximation of the way the UIKit classes work.  In UIKit you would typically have your TableViewController implement the protocols for delegate and datasource and thus all of your methods from these two protocols would be in the same class.  The UITableViewSource class gives you a similar code structure.

I have modified the uitvc template for generating a UITableViewController that uses this new UITableViewSource class.  Create an Empty class file from the File->New File…->General menu.  Delete everything in this class file.  Type uitvc and hit the tab key. This will create a UITableViewController subclass that sets up a UITableViewSource as its Source.  All you need to do is specify the namespace for the controller, the name for your class, the shorthand that will be used to reference the instance of the controller in the UITableViewSource, and the Title for the controller.  I have provided a few overrides that will get you started after that.  You can download the template here: uitvc.template.xml

You will need to add this to ~/.config/MonoDevelop/templates/code (choose “Go to folder…” from the Finder menu and paste the directory to find it) and restart MonoDevelop. (Note: If you don’t see templates/code in ~/.config/MonoDevelop, go to Preferences in MonoDevelop and click on Code Templates under Coding.  This should populate this directory.  You don’t need to do anything else here, just close Preferences and follow the instructions above to add the file to the ~/.config/MonoDevelop/templates/code directory.)