I'm facing the following problems:
We have meta data for items, each item can be a different type of NSControl, currently NSTokenField and NSTextField, but we might need NSCombo or other types.
I need to build a form in which each entry will have a label and an editable control.
this form has to be built dynamically since the items are retrieved from the server.
I've implemented it with NSMatrix, and apart from it looking pretty shabby, I'm faced with some visual issues I don't know how to solve.
The visual issue is every time I move the mouse over the NSTextFieldCell the tokens get drawn on the top left corner of the NSMatrix form.
now, I'm considering moving to another type of control,
I've googled for few hours, and found the following controls:
NSForm,
NSMatirx (parent of NSForm),
NSCollectionView,
NSTableView
which one of these is the most appropriate for this task?
I hope I am clear since I wanted to add pictures, but it wouldn't let me due to lack of "reputation points".
Thanks for your help,
Eyal.
NSTokenField is a subclass of NSTextField so you could use an NSTableView to display them.
You could also draw a custom NSCell with all elements in it. When each "item" has a different number of elements then this becomes a bit more complicated though.
Related
If I turn the autocorrection ON, the words get autocompleted, as if I write "wor", I get "word" before I finish writing. I don't want this to happen because I might be writing "world" or any word different than the autocompleted one.
I set Correction off in the Interface Builder and this problem is solved.
The problem now is that I still need the suggestions that appear in a little popover below the incomplete words.
This two features might be different but I don't know how to activate the suggestions.
How can I solve this?
This can be solved with the use of tableview. Create a tableview with the width as of the width of the textfield and height as you like. Place it just below the textfield. Make it hidden initially. When the user starts typing, fetch the array of data that resembles to the typed text and if any exists then, unhide the table view. On the subsequent typing keep on reloading the tableview sections with animations. You should be accurate on hiding, unhiding and then reloading the data on the tableview. I have implemented such thing before. It is really easy and once you get started with it you find it easy.
In the UITextView TextViewDidChange I created a thread that changed the cursor position. This, off course happens after the text view changes. The change of the cursor position triggers the autocomplete without letting me even see that there had been a suggestion.
I would like to make a table-view with expanding ability.
When you press a row, the row should expand to show options like delete, copy and so on.
I have found an example for iOS, but I didn't get it running on Mac OS X, because NSTableView and UITableView are very different.
http://www.cocoacontrols.com/platforms/ios/controls/kofiles
Has anyone another template?
Or maybe even get this example running on Mac OS X?
I don't have code to hand you but you can use a view-based NSTableView. Your prototype view can resize itself to include controls if it's selected. All that's a bit complex to condense into a reasonably brief answer but if you use a view-based table view and treat the prototype view like any other that would grow and show extra controls, then wire this behavior to the selection state, it should work.
Note: you will have to write some code for the expansion portion, to handle resizing it, showing the controls, and notifying the table view that one of its rows changed height. Lots of documentation and examples exist out there for each individual component of your problem. Post more specific questions as you run into roadblocks.
I have seen that in Cocoa I can create a custom view using drawing primitives which allows me to draw what I like but at a very low level.
Instead I'd like to create custom widgets using a combination of existing controls. For example:
I'd like to create a table with images and combobox in cells
I'd like to create a custom widget wich is a combination of several (for example a list, a button and combobox)
How can I approach this problem ?
Secondly a typical cocoa developer uses external controls? Is there a repository or a list of interesting external custom controls (commercial or free) ?
I'd like to create a table with images and combobox in cells
There already exists NSImageCell and NSComboBoxCell. Are you sure you need to do anything different?
If the problem is that you want an image and a combo box in the same cell, you will have to subclass NSCell. Currently table views can only contain cells, not views, which makes your life harder (as understanding how cell drawing works is more difficult). That will change in Lion, however, so if you can wait until then, this will become easier!
I'd like to create a custom widget wich is a combination of several (for example a list, a button and combobox)
How is your custom widget different to just placing those three things in the same view?
You could write your own NSView subclass. When it's created, it should create a list, a button and a combobox and add them as subviews to itself. Your NSView subclass should handle the logic of keeping them in sync or doing whatever it is you want them to do. Then, to use this combination control in Interface Builder, you place a Custom View and set its class (rightmost tab of the inspector) to your NSView subclass.
BTW, on a tangent, are you sure you mean combobox? Loads of people coming from Windows get this one wrong. A combobox is a combination of a menu and a text field: it allows the user to enter custom text that is not in the menu. If you just want a dropdown menu of choices (and the user can't enter a custom one), you use an NSPopupButton.
Secondly a typical cocoa developer uses external controls?
Yes, sometimes. Things like BWToolkit can be very useful. There's a lot more that are just floating around mailing lists as code snippets, rather than being cleaned up and put in a library. Search for what you need to do!
I can make a single row IKImageBrowserView by setting the
[imageBrowser setContentResizingMask:NSViewWidthSizable];
but in this case while i drag an image inside image browser to rearrange it, the drop place highlights with horizontal line(vertical line expected).
how can this be changed?
Many thanks.
There is no defined way to do what you want.
You may be better off writing your own custom view where you can control every detail of how things are drawn. In general, Apple's controls are "as-is" and unless they provide an explicit way to control behavior or mention that you can custom an object in some way, don't count on being able to do it easily (if at all).
I would also suggest heading to http://bugreport.apple.com and making the enhancement request - it would be best if you attached a sample application demonstrating the behavior.
EDIT: You could also try out the NSCollectionView to see if it might work for you.
Is it posible to use table view to show just one row of a big amount of elements? What I'm looking for is for some kind of horizontal list, like we have in XCode preferences or Aperture image list.
It would behave just like a one columnt table view, but instead of showing the elements vertically, it should be horizontally.
Can you point me to where should I start from?
If you're okay with Leopard-only, The new NSCollectionView supports horizontal display. Just set the collection view's number of rows to 1 in Interface Builder; it'll even handle the horizontal scroll bar for you. The IconCollection sample code provides a simple demonstration of how it works. It's bindings work similarly to a table view's, except instead of rows and columns, each object represented gets an 'item' (an object of type NSCollectionViewItem) that displays it, and those items will be laid out in a grid. The sample code above demonstrates how to set up these 'items' in Interface Builder, which is definitely the easiest way.
With a table view? No. If I'm understanding correctly what you want, in the past I've created my own NSView subclass for this type of control. Define a data source protocol similar to NSTableView, and in your NSView drawRect method, draw the elements in order one by one from left to right. You can either keep track of paging in your control, or put it in a scroll view and resize yourself whenever the number of items changes.
Usually this type of thing starts off pretty simple, and gets a bit complex once you start handling caching, paging, selection, mouse and keyboard input and so on. My advice, start as simple as possible and add new features one by one, only after you've finished the previous task.