how to efficiently request data from a web server without blocking the UI?

Question

I wish to make an app that can download some data from a web-server and display it in a UItableview.

The main problem is (from what i understood) is that if i try to request the data in the main thread, the program will lock. That sounds perfectly reasonable and correct . So, i have to create a new NSThread to run it in parallel, also correct by me.

The question that i have is how can i recieve the data ( that may contain images, text, etc. ) and display it at a time (lets say i want to display 20 cells at a time, and when i reach the bottom of the 20, a loading circle appears and loads the next 20 when it can ) . How can i for example load 20 cells even if the image is not loaded yet ? I don't have a clear connection of the data transfer so my question may seem kind of vague.

Anyone got a good tutorial ?

Answer 1

Use ASIHttpRequest