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Before the introduction of Collection Views and Flow Layout, the closest iOS came to providing organized data presentation involved the use of the Table View. Whilst still a powerful user interface design option, the Table View was intended to fill a very specific need and, as such, has some limitations in terms of flexibility. Table View, for example, displays data in cells arranged in a single column layout. Collection views, on the other hand, provide a high degree of flexibility, allowing cells to be organized in just about any configuration imaginable, including grids, stacks, tiles and circular arrangements.
The goal of this chapter is to present an overview of the key elements that make up collection views prior to working through a step by step tutorial in the next chapter, entitled [[An iOS 7 Storyboard-based Collection View Tutorial|An iOS Storyboard-based Collection View Tutorial]].
== An Overview of Collection Views ==
