How to Implement Custom Table View Section Headers and Footers with Storyboard

Solution 1:

Just use a prototype cell as your section header and / or footer.

• add an extra cell and put your desired elements in it.
• set the identifier to something specific (in my case SectionHeader)
• implement the tableView:viewForHeaderInSection: method or the tableView:viewForFooterInSection: method
• use [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:] to get the header
• implement the tableView:heightForHeaderInSection: method.

-(UIView *) tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"SectionHeader"; 
    UITableViewCell *headerView = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    if (headerView == nil){
        [NSException raise:@"headerView == nil.." format:@"No cells with matching CellIdentifier loaded from your storyboard"];
    }
    return headerView;
}  

Edit: How to change the header title (commented question):

1. Add a label to the header cell
2. set the tag of the label to a specific number (e.g. 123)
3. In your tableView:viewForHeaderInSection: method get the label by calling:

    UILabel *label = (UILabel *)[headerView viewWithTag:123]; 

4. Now you can use the label to set a new title:

    [label setText:@"New Title"];

Solution 2:

I know this question was for iOS 5, but for the benefit of future readers, note that effective iOS 6 we can now use dequeueReusableHeaderFooterViewWithIdentifier instead of dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier.

So in viewDidLoad, call either registerNib:forHeaderFooterViewReuseIdentifier: or registerClass:forHeaderFooterViewReuseIdentifier:. Then in viewForHeaderInSection, call tableView:dequeueReusableHeaderFooterViewWithIdentifier:. You do not use a cell prototype with this API (it's either a NIB-based view or a programmatically created view), but this is the new API for dequeued headers and footers.

Solution 3:

In iOS 6.0 and above, things have changed with the new dequeueReusableHeaderFooterViewWithIdentifier API.

I have written a guide (tested on iOS 9), which can be summarised as such:

1. Subclass UITableViewHeaderFooterView
2. Create Nib with the subclass view, and add 1 container view which contains all other views in the header/footer
3. Register the Nib in viewDidLoad
4. Implement viewForHeaderInSection and use dequeueReusableHeaderFooterViewWithIdentifier to get back the header/footer