My JSQMessageView Controller collectionView is being called 4 times - jsqmessagesviewcontroller

Question

I was implementing the photo media item and noticed some extreme performance issues. When I started debugging I noticed that messageDataForItemAtIndexPath was getting called 4 times for each item, whereas in another sample project I set up it was being called 10 times
Here's a dummy project I set up to test and it's calling each item 10 times even though there is only one message item.
This was causing problems for me as that's the function where I start my async download of media photos and calling the download media request 10 times for each item was causing problems for me.
Am I mis-understanding something basic here?
import UIKit
import JSQMessagesViewController
class ViewController: JSQMessagesViewController {
var messages = [JSQMessage]()
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.senderId = "1"
self.senderDisplayName = "me"
let message = JSQMessage(senderId: "admin", displayName: "Admin", text:"hello from admin")
self.messages.append(message)
}
override func collectionView(collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return self.messages.count
}
override func collectionView(collectionView: JSQMessagesCollectionView!, messageBubbleImageDataForItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath!) -> JSQMessageBubbleImageDataSource! {
return JSQMessagesBubbleImageFactory().incomingMessagesBubbleImageWithColor(UIColor.blueColor())
}
override func collectionView(collectionView: JSQMessagesCollectionView!, avatarImageDataForItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath!) -> JSQMessageAvatarImageDataSource! {
return nil
}
override func collectionView(collectionView: JSQMessagesCollectionView!, messageDataForItemAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath!) -> JSQMessageData! {
//why is this called 10 times?
let msg = self.messages[indexPath.item];
let text = msg.text
print(text + ":" + String(indexPath.item))
return JSQMessage(senderId: msg.senderId, displayName: msg.senderDisplayName, text: text)
}
}
This will output in the console
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0
hello from admin:0

Answer 1

It looks like this is by design.
Answered here:
https://github.com/jessesquires/JSQMessagesViewController/issues/1211