I am a new Mac developer and I have started to learn Cocoa. In my sample application I want to add a background image to my NSToolbar as a theme for my application and I want that image to be the full size of the toolbar. But i have checked and didn't get a solution. I want to know if it is really a possible thing.
Thanks and regards,
Mac 66
There is no public API to do this. You would need to do some "evil" things with private API or create your own toolbar mechanism. If you don't need things like item overflow, user customization, etc. then it might be easier/cleaner just to use standard buttons in the top margin of the window.
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I want to add a color picker control to a windows store App (using VB), I came to know that there is no standard control for that. So any ideas about what could be a good purchased or open source option?
So I started building one into WinRT XAML Toolkit here but never got round to finishing it. Mainly because I figured there would need to be very different designs for different platforms. The control isn't finished, but a lot of the components that are there you could use to build a color picker that fits your design. There's a ColorExtensions class that might help you convert between HSL/HSV/RGB models, there's a FromString() method in it that can parse a color string in the formats available in XAML (e.g. "Transparent" or #FFAA0080 or #FB0) and there's a WriteableBitmapColorPickerExtensions class that you can use to render a hue ring, 2D color selector bitmap or a 1D color bar. I'll probably create some usable controls one day to use all of these primitives, but for now - you have that power! :)
I've created a simple color picker for Universal Apps, you can read about it from this blog post...
I have a question regarding NSMenuItems.
What I'm trying to do is replicate a java GUI using native OS X components, therefore the language I am using is Cocoa. What I am trying to do is to get every menu item to have an image and then, beside it, some text.
I have already done some research into it and my first port of call (as always it seems lol) was the apple docs which had this handy example which illustrates how to embed views inside menuitems:
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/MenuItemView/Listings/MyWindowController_m.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS10004136-MyWindowController_m-DontLinkElementID_8
Being relatively new to cocoa, I was thinking I would have to override one of the drawing methods from NSMenuItem. Not really sure though.
Another idea that I was toying with was creating a custom view that held a image and some text.
Any other ideas/validation or discussion would be most appreciated.
Thanks all!
Oh and the GUI creation is being done by hand no interface builder.
Okay, so I now have menu items with icons beside them. For anyone who is interested here it is ( i've not done a leak analysis on it or anything).
First things first, put all of the images you want into the "Resources" folder (thats what its called in xcode 3.1.4).
Now, for example, after we have all the images, we want to use images called "eraser.png" and "eraser_on.png" and I want to attach these to the 3rd menu item. In order to achieve this we do the following :
The code below will get the menu item at position 3 in the menu
NSMenuItem *item = [ nameOfPopUpButton itemAtIndex:2];
The code below will set the image for the menu item to be "eraser.png"
[ item setImage: [ NSImage imageNamed:#"eraser"] ];
That's you set the image for the menu item (which will be on the left hand side of the text aka before the text).
If you want different images for the different states, eg when the user presses it, use this method (not tested myself but its sounds sensible :D and the function is straight out the api)
[item setOnStateImage: [ NSImage imageNamed:#"eraser_on" ] ]
You can however leave it nil or not set it at all and it will go the default color
Hope this helps someone.
Pieced this together from: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/MenuMadness/Listings/Controller_m.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40008870-Controller_m-DontLinkElementID_4
Thanks :)
If you need to do this you have the right idea in creating a view with image and label subviews.
BUT: don't do this. Creating a "native" application is not primarily about your choice of language (which is Objective-C, btw, not Cocoa; the latter is a collection of development frameworks implemented in Objective-C). It's about conforming to the platform.
On OS X (and iOS), more than probably any other platform, consistency in UI design is paramount. Users know when an application looks strange, and having icons next to each menu item (something I certainly have seen in Java apps) is definitely strange and unnatural on OS X. Users will be irritated at best, confused at worst.
So my advice is to either follow the Human Interface Guidelines (and save yourself a lot of work as a nice side effect) or just stick with your existing Java application.
If you want to provide quick iconic access to common functions, the recommended approach on OS X is to use a toolbar.
What I mean by this is, how much work would be involved in rewriting/extending default AppKit controls in a way that would allow for both a standard OS X appearance and custom appearance (loaded from image files) if the user so wishes? (Think of WinAmp or Windows Media Player.) Has anyone tried to bring this to the Mac?
I understand how to redraw an NSWindow or a button cell but that's all hard coded. I want something the user can add to themselves. What are my options?
Well, it would really involved redrawing all the custom components you'd need from scratch, whether in code, or using images. AppKit wasn't meant to be customized as it strictly follows Apple's Human Interface Guidelines; Apple wants to create one consistent UI metaphor across all native applications.
What that means in practice is that you're going to have to do a lot of custom drawing to theme your app. Using images makes things easier, but not by too much. If you want a custom button, you'll have to create a subclass of NSButton and NSButtonCell to load the images you want and draw (take a look at NSDrawThreePartImage() and NSDrawNinePartImage() for how to more easily draw resizable buttons). To theme NSWindow, you'll have to subclass NSThemeFrame, a semi-private class that draws the standard OS X window look.
Essentially, you'll just need to do a lot of subclassing to get the appearance you want. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it recommended or easy to do? Not so much.
Of course, you have to ask if this is really necessary. The point of the HIG is to try to create one standard look across OS X. If not done expertly, a themed look can be tacky, and possibly even confusing for users who are used to the default OS X look. If you want to include UI theming, there usually needs to be a good reason for it (either to maintain cross-platform compatibility, but in that case, all HIG rules are out the window; or to achieve a specific look, a là game UI), but I really wouldn't recommend doing it, let alone letting users customize your UI themselves.
Yes this fully possible. But are you shure that you want to do this using AppKit? Maybe better use crossplatform solution like QT that support skinning through CSS?
Notice this app:
How can I draw that sort of triangle above an existing NSWindow? I know the app in question probably draws the whole thing as a custom window, but I want to keep the existing title bar. Is there any way to draw a triangle and attach it above a NSWindow? Please note that the solution has to be MAS-compatible (i.e. no private frameworks or classes).
The only way to do this would be to create a borderless child window with no shadow that overlays the edge of the existing window. You'd need to draw any shadow yourself.
A more comprehensive solution would involve subclassing NSThemeFrame and doing some custom drawing. Take a look at Matt Gallagher's Drawing a custom window on Mac OS X. It contains a wealth of helpful information, and Google will also be of great help here.
I've written an open source (BSD) framework that draws windows similar to this: https://github.com/sbooth/SFBPopovers
It won't directly do what you need but will illustrate the basics of drawing custom window frames.
I'm in the midst of porting a win32 app to cocoa. Wherever possible, I'm using IB, since... well its way easier in every way possible, obviously. One thing is the designer and the win32 dev set up all the button assets on a massive "sprite sheet" such you move around the viewport to determine button state. Similar to how yahoo does CSS sprites on their home page (http://d.yimg.com/a/i/ww/met/pa_icons/20100309/spr_apps_us.png)
Can IB be setup to handle this type sprite strip with the default buttons, or are we SOL on this one? I can certainly fire something up programmatically that would do this, but would like to incorporate as much of the default button behavior and selector hookup in IB.
Thoughts?
Josh
This isn't supported in IB because it is really not a Cocoa way of setting button images. I understand why you would use sprites in CSS but in a native program (on any platform) it seems really unnecessary and inefficient.
I honestly think it would be much less work for you to forget about using the sprites. Out of curiosity, are these buttons going to be for standard user interactions, or something more along the line of buttons for a game? If it is for standard user interactions (open file, change font, etc.) then I strongly recommend using the stock buttons as much as possible, although I understand that this might be out of your control. The reason is that the worst ported apps are usually the ones that try to keep visual fidelity with their Windows counterpart.