Below is a simplistic Obj-C / Cocoa "hello world" window, which is initialized from within a Carbon app. The .xib contains a NSWindow, which has an NSView containing the NSButton/NSButtonCell and a NSScrollView/NSTextView/NSScroller(s).
The code compiles and links with no warnings. The window is displayed properly, with both objects (button and text field). Pressing the button does indeed go to buttonWasPressed, and I receive no errors regarding bad selectors in Xcode's debugger.
But the text in the NSTextView is unchanged.
I THINK I have the proper outlet for myTextView connected. Perhaps using replaceTextContainer is not a proper way to connect myTextView to textContainer?
SAD NOTE: my 30 years of C++ programming does not a smooth transition to Obj-C/Cocoa make...
#implementation DictionaryWindowController
- (id)init {
self = [super init];
// This is actually a separate Cocoa window in a Carbon app -- I load it from the NIB upon command from a Carbon menu event...
NSApplicationLoad();
if (![NSBundle loadNibNamed:#"Cocoa Test Window.nib" owner:self]) {
NSLog(#"failed to load nib");
}
if (self) {
// textStorage is a NSTextStorage* in DictionaryWindowController (NSObject)
textStorage = [[NSTextStorage alloc] initWithString:#""];
NSLayoutManager *layoutManager = [[NSLayoutManager alloc] init];
[givenStorage addLayoutManager:layoutManager];
[layoutManager autorelease];
NSTextContainer *textContainer = [[NSTextContainer alloc] initWithContainerSize:NSMakeSize(kLargeWidthForTextContainer, LargeNumberForText)];
[layoutManager addTextContainer:textContainer];
[textContainer autorelease];
// Is this how to "connect" the myTextView (NSTextView) from the .nib to the textStorage/layoutManager/textContainer?
[myTextView replaceTextContainer:textContainer];
[myTextView setMaxSize:NSMakeSize(LargeNumberForText, LargeNumberForText)];
[myTextView setSelectable:YES];
[myTextView setEditable:YES];
[myTextView setRichText:YES];
[myTextView setImportsGraphics:YES];
[myTextView setUsesFontPanel:YES];
[myTextView setUsesRuler:YES];
[myTextView setAllowsUndo:YES];
// shouldn't I be able to set the string in the NSTextStorage instance and cause the NSTextView to change its text and redraw?
[[textStorage mutableString] setString:#"Default text from initialization..."];
}
return self;
}
- (IBAction)buttonWasPressed:(id)sender {
// Pressing the button DOES get to this point, but the NSTextView didn't change...
[[textStorage mutableString] setString:#"After button press, this text should be the content of the NSTextView."];
}
#end
I believe you're "editing the text storage behind the text view's back". See NSTextStorage's -edited:range:changeInLength: documentation. The docs are a bit vague here but I believe -setString: on the -mutableString you're requesting does not notify the text storage itself of a change (it only updates attribute runs, etc. when modified).
Call -edited:range:changeInLength: or use NSTextView's -setString: method as Mike C. recommended.
Related
I need to add a save extension selector with a text label next to it to my NSSavePanel. In the screenshot attached I try to demonstrate that I succeeded in adding an NSComboBox to my panel with the function setAccessoryView. However I have no idea how to create a custom NSView, which includes both an NSComboBox and an NSTextView or equivalent. I found no tutorials on the internet (or if I found one it was extremely outdated) showing how to create custom NSViews in objective-C in Cocoa on MacOS.
How can I create a custom NSView containing a combobox and a text label? Or how can I add two "stock" NSViews to the same NSSavePanel? Please be as detailed in your answer as possible, as I have very limited objective-c experience.
You asked how to create an NSView in Objective-C with an NSTextField and an NSComboBox as subviews.
Basically, you could define them in Interface Builder and programmatically set the resulting view in Objective-C as the accessoryView of the NSSavePanel. Alternatively, the custom NSView could be created entirely in Objective-C, which is probably the easier option here.
After instantiating an NSView, you can use addSubview: to add an NSTextField and an NSComboBox accordingly. Then you can use NSLayoutConstraints to set up Auto Layout, which takes care of sizing the accessoryView and arranging the subviews properly based on the width of the dialog.
If you create the views programmatically and use Auto Layout, you must explicitly set translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to NO.
Should you want to set the allowedContentTypes, a textual mapping of the displayed extension to UTType via a NSDictionary might be useful.
If you set the delegate of the NSComboBox to self, then you will be informed about changes of the user selection in the NSComboBox via comboBoxSelectionDidChange:.
If the things discussed are implemented appropriately in code, it might look something like this for a self-contained example:
#import <UniformTypeIdentifiers/UniformTypeIdentifiers.h>
#import "ViewController.h"
#interface ViewController () <NSComboBoxDelegate>
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSSavePanel *savePanel;
#property (nonatomic, strong) NSDictionary<NSString *, UTType*> *typeMapping;
#end
#implementation ViewController
- (instancetype)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder {
if (self = [super initWithCoder:coder]) {
_typeMapping = #{
#"jpeg": UTTypeJPEG,
#"png": UTTypePNG,
#"tiff": UTTypeTIFF
};
}
return self;
}
- (NSView *)accessoryView {
NSTextField *label = [NSTextField labelWithString:#"Filetypes:"];
label.textColor = NSColor.lightGrayColor;
label.font = [NSFont systemFontOfSize:NSFont.smallSystemFontSize];
label.alignment = NSTextAlignmentRight;
NSComboBox *comboBox = [NSComboBox new];
comboBox.editable = NO;
for (NSString *extension in self.typeMapping.allKeys) {
[comboBox addItemWithObjectValue:extension];
}
[comboBox setDelegate:self];
NSView *view = [NSView new];
[view addSubview:label];
[view addSubview:comboBox];
comboBox.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = NO;
label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = NO;
[NSLayoutConstraint activateConstraints:#[
[label.bottomAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:view.bottomAnchor constant:-12],
[label.widthAnchor constraintEqualToConstant:64.0],
[label.leadingAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:view.leadingAnchor constant:0.0],
[comboBox.topAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:view.topAnchor constant:8.0],
[comboBox.leadingAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:label.trailingAnchor constant:8.0],
[comboBox.bottomAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:view.bottomAnchor constant:-8.0],
[comboBox.trailingAnchor constraintEqualToAnchor:view.trailingAnchor constant:-20.0],
]];
return view;
}
- (void)comboBoxSelectionDidChange:(NSNotification *)notification {
NSComboBox *comboBox = notification.object;
NSString *selectedItem = comboBox.objectValueOfSelectedItem;
NSLog(#"### set allowedContentTypes to %# (%#)", selectedItem, self.typeMapping[selectedItem]);
[self.savePanel setAllowedContentTypes:#[ self.typeMapping[selectedItem] ]];
}
- (IBAction)onSave:(id)sender {
NSWindow *window = NSApplication.sharedApplication.windows.firstObject;
self.savePanel = [NSSavePanel new];
self.savePanel.accessoryView = [self accessoryView];
[self.savePanel beginSheetModalForWindow:window completionHandler:^(NSModalResponse result) {
if (result != NSModalResponseOK) {
return;
}
NSURL *fileURL = self.savePanel.URL;
NSLog(#"### selectedFile: %#", fileURL);
}];
}
- (void)setRepresentedObject:(id)representedObject {
[super setRepresentedObject:representedObject];
}
#end
Finally, a screenshot of the above demo code in action looks like this:
Press Cmd-N to add a new file to your project. Choose a View file to add a xib file that has a custom view.
Open the xib file and add the controls to the custom view. Press the Add button in the project window toolbar to access the user interface elements.
Use the NSNib class to load the xib file and get the custom view.
Usually I am making iOS app but now I am trying to make an OS X app, and I am lost at the very beginning. Say the style I make the iOS apps are totally programmatic, there's no xib files or whatsoever just because that I have a lot more control by typing than dragging. However in OS X programming, it starts with some xib files with the menu items and a default window. There are quite a lot of items in the menu items so that's probably not something I want to mess around, but I want to programmatically create my first window myself.
So I did this:
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{
NSUInteger windowStyleMask = NSTitledWindowMask|NSResizableWindowMask|NSClosableWindowMask|NSMiniaturizableWindowMask;
NSWindow* appWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect:NSMakeRect(200, 200, 1280, 720) styleMask:windowStyleMask backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered defer:NO];
appWindow.backgroundColor = [NSColor lightGrayColor];
appWindow.minSize = NSMakeSize(1280, 720);
appWindow.title = #"Sample Window";
[appWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];
_appWindowController = [[AppWindowController alloc] initWithWindow:appWindow];
[_appWindowController showWindow:self];
}
So here, I have created a window first, and use that windowController to init this window. The window does show up in this way, but I can only specify the inner elements, like buttons and labels here, but not in the windowController. It makes me feel bad so I tried another way.
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{
_appWindowController = [[AppWindowController alloc] init];
[_appWindowController showWindow:self];
}
and after this I want to set the other elements in the loadWindow: function in the windowController like this:
- (void)loadWindow
{
[self.window setFrame:NSMakeRect(200, 200, 1280, 720) display:YES];
self.window.title = #"Sample window";
self.window.backgroundColor = [NSColor lightGrayColor];
NSButton* sampleButton = [[NSButton alloc] initWithFrame:NSRectFromCGRect(CGRectMake(100, 100, 200, 23))];
sampleButton.title = #"Sample Button!";
[sampleButton setButtonType:NSMomentaryLightButton];
[sampleButton setBezelStyle:NSRoundedBezelStyle];
[self.window.contentView addSubview:sampleButton];
NSLog(#"Loaded window!");
[self.window makeKeyAndOrderFront:nil];
}
Unfortunately, this never works. the loadWindow: never gets called, nor windowDidLoad:. Where did they go?
And please don't ask why I don't use nibs. I wish to make some highly customized views inside, possibly OpenGL, so I don't think nibs can handle it. I am greatly appreciated if anyone could help. Thanks.
And also, who knows how to even start the menu items from scratch, programmatically?
I am using the latest Xcode.
I spent an entire Sunday digging into this problem myself. Like the person asking the question, I prefer coding iOS and OSX without nib files (mostly) or Interface Builder and to go bare metal. I DO use NSConstraints though. It is probably NOT WORTH avoiding IB if you're doing simpler UIs, however when you get into a more complex UI it gets harder.
It turns out to be fairly simple to do, and for the benefit of the "Community" I thought I'd post a concise up to date answer here. There ARE some older Blog Posts out there and the one I found most useful were the ones from Lap Cat Software. 'Tip O The Hat' to you sir!
This Assumes ARC. Modify your main() to look something like this:
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import "AppDelegate.h"
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
NSArray *tl;
NSApplication *application = [NSApplication sharedApplication];
[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:#"MainMenu" owner:application topLevelObjects:&tl];
AppDelegate *applicationDelegate = [[AppDelegate alloc] init]; // Instantiate App delegate
[application setDelegate:applicationDelegate]; // Assign delegate to the NSApplication
[application run]; // Call the Apps Run method
return 0; // App Never gets here.
}
You'll note that there is still a Nib (xib) in there. This is for the main menu only. As it turns out even today (2014) apparently no way to easily set the position 0 menu item. That's the one with the title = to your App name. You can set everything to the right of it using [NSApplication setMainMenu] but not that one. So I opted to keep the MainMenu Nib created by Xcode in new projects, and strip it down to just the position 0 item. I think that is a fair compromise and something I can live with. One brief plug for UI Sanity... when you're creating Menus please follow the same basic pattern as other Mac OSX Apps.
Next modify the AppDelegate to look something like this:
-(id)init
{
if(self = [super init]) {
NSRect contentSize = NSMakeRect(500.0, 500.0, 1000.0, 1000.0);
NSUInteger windowStyleMask = NSTitledWindowMask | NSResizableWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask | NSMiniaturizableWindowMask;
window = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect:contentSize styleMask:windowStyleMask backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered defer:YES];
window.backgroundColor = [NSColor whiteColor];
window.title = #"MyBareMetalApp";
// Setup Preference Menu Action/Target on MainMenu
NSMenu *mm = [NSApp mainMenu];
NSMenuItem *myBareMetalAppItem = [mm itemAtIndex:0];
NSMenu *subMenu = [myBareMetalAppItem submenu];
NSMenuItem *prefMenu = [subMenu itemWithTag:100];
prefMenu.target = self;
prefMenu.action = #selector(showPreferencesMenu:);
// Create a view
view = [[NSTabView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 700, 700)];
}
return self;
}
-(IBAction)showPreferencesMenu:(id)sender
{
[NSApp runModalForWindow:[[PreferencesWindow alloc] initWithAppFrame:window.frame]];
}
-(void)applicationWillFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)notification
{
[window setContentView:view]; // Hook the view up to the window
}
-(void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)notification
{
[window makeKeyAndOrderFront:self]; // Show the window
}
And Bingo... you're good to go! You can start working from there in the AppDelegate pretty much like you're familiar with. Hope that helps!
UPDATE: I don't create menus in code anymore as I've shown above. I've discovered you can edit MainMenu.xib source in Xcode 6.1. Works nice, very flexible and all it takes is a little experimentation to see how it works. Faster than messing around in code and easy to localize! See the picture to understand what I am on about:
See https://github.com/sindresorhus/touch-bar-simulator/blob/master/Touch%20Bar%20Simulator/main.swift
In main.swift
let app = NSApplication.shared()
let delegate = AppDelegate()
app.delegate = delegate
app.run()
Swift 4:
// File main.swift
autoreleasepool {
// Even if we loading application manually we need to setup `Info.plist` key:
// <key>NSPrincipalClass</key>
// <string>NSApplication</string>
// Otherwise Application will be loaded in `low resolution` mode.
let app = Application.shared
app.setActivationPolicy(.regular)
app.run()
}
// File Application.swift
public class Application: NSApplication {
private lazy var mainWindowController = MainWindowController()
private lazy var mainAppMenu = MainMenu()
override init() {
super.init()
delegate = self
mainMenu = mainAppMenu
}
public required init?(coder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: coder) // This will newer called.
}
}
extension Application: NSApplicationDelegate {
public func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {
mainWindowController.showWindow(nil)
}
}
Override the -init method in your AppWindowController class to create the window and then call super's -initWithWindow: method (which is NSWindowController's designated initializer) with that window.
But I generally agree with the comments that there's little reason to avoid NIBs.
I was wondering if I could create an app which supports opening .html-pages.
For example, if the app supports .pdf, when opening a .pdf, a small gray box appears with the button "Open in myApp". Can I get something like this, but then for a webpage?
Hmm you are talking about UIDocumentInteractionController then.
Implement UIDocumentInteractionControllerDelegate in your UIViewController
- (UIViewController *)documentInteractionControllerViewControllerForPreview:(UIDocumentInteractionController *)controller { return self; }
- (UIView *)documentInteractionControllerViewForPreview:(UIDocumentInteractionController *)controller { return self.view; }
- (CGRect)documentInteractionControllerRectForPreview:(UIDocumentInteractionController *)controller { return self.view.frame; }
Then add a button to the navigation bar to popup the options box:
// example: opening a .html file
NSString *index = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"index" ofType:#"html"];
// self.controller is a UIDocumentInteractionController ivar
self.controller = [UIDocumentInteractionController interactionControllerWithURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:fileToOpen]];
self.controller.delegate = self;
CGRect rect = self.navigationController.navigationBar.frame;
rect.size = CGSizeMake(1500.0f, 40.0f); // move the box right down under the button
[self.controller presentOptionsMenuFromRect:rect inView:self.view animated:YES];
A list of the applications supporting a particular document should appear. If you didn't register your app to support a type of document you still get the option "QuickLook". All this happens on whatever application is interacting with the file (since the files themselves are not exposed on the UI).
I have an interface that has an NSTextField, NSButton, and an NSView. When I type something in the NSTextfield and press the button, I want the text to be drawn in the NSView. So far I have everything connected and working, except for the view.
How can I connect the text and the view so that every time I press the button, the text is drawn to the view?
How can I connect the text and the view so that every time I press the button, the text is drawn to the view?
Views do their own drawing.
You need to give the view the string to draw, and then set the view as needing display. You'll do these in the action method that you wire the button up to.
First, your custom view class needs to have a property for the value (string, in this case) that it's going to display. From your action method, which should generally be on a controller object, send the view object a setFoo: message (assuming you named the property foo). That takes care of job one: The view now has the value to display.
Job two is even easier: Send the view a setNeedsDisplay: message, with the value YES.
That's it. The action method is two lines.
Of course, since views draw themselves, you also need your custom view to actually draw, so you need to implement the drawRect: method in that class. It, too, will be short; all you need to do is tell the string to draw itself.
Bindings
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/Conceptual/CocoaBindings/Concepts/WhatAreBindings.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20002372-CJBEJBHH
For simplicity's sake I didn't mention this before, but the app also has a speech element to speak the string. This aspect of the program works fine, so just ignore any messages involving the SpeakAndDraw class (it's actually misnamed and only includes a speech method, nothing about drawing).
View.m
#import "View.h"
#implementation View
#synthesize stringToDraw;
- (id)initWithFrame:(NSRect)frame {
self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
if (self) {
[self setAttributes];
stringToDraw = #"Hola";
}
return self;
}
- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect {
NSRect bounds = [self bounds];
[self drawStringInRect:bounds];
}
- (void)setAttributes
{
attributes = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
[attributes setObject:[NSFont fontWithName:#"Helvetica"
size:75]
forKey:NSFontAttributeName];
[attributes setObject:[NSColor blackColor]
forKey:NSForegroundColorAttributeName];
}
- (void)drawStringInRect:(NSRect)rect
{
NSSize strSize = [stringToDraw sizeWithAttributes:attributes];
NSPoint strOrigin;
strOrigin.x = rect.origin.x + (rect.size.width - strSize.width)/2;
strOrigin.y = rect.origin.y + (rect.size.height - strSize.height)/2;
[stringToDraw drawAtPoint:strOrigin withAttributes:attributes];
}
#end
SpeakerController.m
#import "SpeakerController.h"
#implementation SpeakerController
- (id)init
{
speakAndDraw = [[SpeakAndDraw alloc] init];
view = [[View alloc] init];
[mainWindow setContentView:mainContentView];
[mainContentView addSubview:view];
return self;
}
- (IBAction)speakText:(id)sender
{
[speakAndDraw setStringToSay:[text stringValue]];
[speakAndDraw speak];
[view setStringToDraw:[text stringValue]];
[view setNeedsDisplay:YES];
NSLog(#"%#", view.stringToDraw);
NSLog(#"%#", [view window]);
}
#end
I'm creating an instance of a viewController, and then trying to set the text on of it's properties, a UILabel.
BoyController *boyViewController = [[BoyController alloc] initWithNibName:#"BoyView" bundle:nil];
NSString *newText = [astrology getSignWithMonth:month withDay:day];
boyViewController.sign.text = newText;
NSLog(#" the boyviewcontroller.sign.text is now set to: %#", boyViewController.sign.text);
[newText release];
I tried this, but it didn't work...
So I tried the following:
BoyController *boyViewController = [[BoyController alloc] initWithNibName:#"BoyView" bundle:nil];
UILabel *newUILabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
newUILabel.text = [astrology getSignWithMonth:month withDay:day];
boyViewController.sign = newUILabel;
NSLog(#" the boyviewcontroller.sign.text is now set to: %#", newUILabel.text);
[newUILabel release];
But no avail..
I'm not sure why I can't set the text property of the UILabel "sign" in boyViewController..
The problem here is that the initializer does not actually load the nib file into memory. Instead, loading the nib is delayed until your application requests the view controller's view property. As such, your controller's sign property is null when you access it.
Manually requesting the controller's view property would make your example work...
BoyController *boyViewController = [[BoyController alloc] initWithNibName:#"BoyView" bundle:nil];
[boyViewController view]; // !!!: Calling [... view] here forces the nib to load.
NSString *newText = [astrology getSignWithMonth:month withDay:day];
boyViewController.sign.text = newText;
// and so on...
However, I'd guess that what you're really trying to do is create and configure your view controller before setting it free to do it's own thing. (Perhaps to display it modally, say.) Calling [... view] manually is not going to be a long-term solution.
Better is to set a separate property on your view controller for the label text and then implement viewDidLoad to assign it to the label:
#interface BoyViewController : UIViewController {
IBOutlet UILabel *label;
NSString *labelText;
}
#property(nonatomic, copy)NSString *labelText;
#end
#implementation
#synthesize labelText;
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[label setText:[self labelText]];
}
// and so on...
#end
This has the added benefit of your label text being reset in case the view is purged during a low memory event.
Did you bind your outlets at Interface Builder?
It seems that you need to bind sign outlet of the first example into Interface Builder in order to actually set that text to whatever you want.
Once you bind your outlet to the actual UI component at Interface Builder, then you should be able to do something like:
NSString *newText = [astrology getSignWithMonth:month withDay:day];
[[boyViewController sign] setText:newText];
This is what you need to know about binding.
Your second example does not make sense at all to me.