Is there a way to force a window directly above the desktop and make it transparent? Basically I want a way to draw an image and animation on the desktop so that it integrates (ie. a clock that sits on your desktop, below other windows, has a transparent background, etc).
Also, if you have a solution, is it an official API?
Use an NSWindow initialised with style NSBorderlessWindowMask and make it floating
setLevel:NSFloatingWindowLevel
You can place your view hierarchy into that window.
Related
What would be the best approach for creating a Window that is semi-transparent, has round corners and an outline around its border and the arrow, but without the the title bar and buttons.
The window will pop up from the Menu Bar when a use clicks on the menu bar icon.
I'm looking to have an effect similar to the "Applications" and "Downloads" windows:
I guess I will need to do the drawing myself. But I'm wondering what's the best way to do this and whether there is anything already built into Cocoa that can minimize the effort? Or maybe a 3rd party project that has already done that (couldn't find anything exactly like that)?
Thanks.
You can create your window with
- (id)initWithContentRect:(NSRect)contentRect styleMask:(NSUInteger)windowStyle backing:(NSBackingStoreType)bufferingType defer:(BOOL)deferCreation
with a style-mask of NSBorderlessWindowMask which will give an unadorned window. Its how the Dock does its mechanics too.
Note that you must init with this style , you can't change an already init'ed windows style.
Place a custom NSView via the contentView accessor with your desired background custom drawing at the top of the windows view stack.
You might need also to setOpaque to NO
What you are looking for has been done a lot. Too much really.
The classes you want to look into are as follows.
NSStatusItem
This is something that appears in the status bar section of the menu bar to the right side.
NSMenu
If you want this from a menu in the application menus, you'll need to do some clever things with views in menus.
NSWindow
As the other poster notes a borderless window is one way to achieve this.
NSPopover
This is another way. Combined with the above, a fancy technique is to use a clear window called a cover window then, when clicking on the menu or status menu, invoke a popover from a point below that in the clear cover window.
That should be enough to get you started with what you should look into.
Beyond that, peruse the Mac App Store and also look at cocoacontrols.com and GitHub.
Well, it might be hard to describe, but what I want this:
When the application fires up, I want it to load a couple of components and I want to show a progress bar loading upto 100% Complete. But for Interface sake, I just want the progress bar on the desktop. I don't want the Window controls or background. My customized progress bar should appear on the desktop loading upto 100%, followed by showing of window and thereby, the entire app.
Just to mention, I want this in a Mac App being developed in Xcode.
I strongly suggest you think about the visual effect you're considering and the assumptions you're making. I would argue this to be "bad design":
Users can put anything as a Desktop Picture. If my background happens to be blue... and your custom progress bar is blue.. then I won't see the progress bar and will be left wondering why your application isn't responding. "Screw this app, it hangs when I launch it. Delete!"
Chances are that users have more than one application running. Your "floating progress bar" would be lost in a sea of other application windows. (Why is iTunes loading something? Oh wait!! It's this other windowless thing... "Not intuitive! Not cool")
This is not very Mac-like. Don't forget there are rules for each platform as to how to be a good citizen. Metro apps need to adhere to a specific Interface paradigm. Likewise, there's a thing to be said for "Mac-like" and I would argue this behaviour isn't (a floating progress bar).
I would strongly suggest you keep your progress bar within a properly named modal window. Applications go in-and-out of being front-most... so it's important to know what that progress bar relates too.
If you've considered all these, the following question should help you get started :
How to make an NSView transparent and show what's under the NSWindow?
You are probably talking of a borderless NSWindow (NSBorderlessWindowMask), with an opaque background view whose alpha is set to zero and an NSProgressIndicator subview to show the progress. You also probably want to use the -[NSWindow center] method to nicely center your window.
However, I doubt that you want that kind of UI. A progress bar is probably not visible on top of all desktops, and thus aesthetically worthless.
I think a rounded, half-transparant black window will be more suited in your case. Take a look at Matt Gemmell's source code.
I'm searching now for a while but can't find an entrance…
The application should behave like a ruler app which is always in front of all apps and does not have a window. I want to draw things directly on the screen.
Would be great if someone could help me out with some keywords to search for or a concrete step into.
Thanks in advance.
Create a borderless transparent NSWindow and draw your content inside it. There are many examples for creating those around.
Use setLevel: to control how the window floats over other windows.
i'm looking for a way to have a NSWindow, which is able to block other NSWindows, like the menubar does. I mean: It is not possible to drag a Window over the menubar.
Is that kind of behavior realizable for my own NSWindow?
Thanks in advance
Bijan
NSWindow's dragging behavior automatically keeps windows from going under the menu bar — because they aren't supposed to. If you have some special case, you can override the standard dragging behavior. But think carefully before throwing away standard functionality prescribed by the HIG.
Also, it isn't possible to drag a window over the menu bar (rather than under) unless it's also over everything else, because the menu bar is normally above every other window.
I just stumbled on this question. There they say it is possible to move other windows using the Accessibility API or the Quartz Window Services.
Can't I just read out the other window's positions and move them, so that they do not collide with my window? Maybe triggered by a 0.1 sec. timer?
I want to create a full Screen Cocoa application, however my app is slightly different from a conventional fullscreen app.
This app would be below everything else, so underneath the menu bar and the Dock, etc. It would have a large image covering up the Desktop and icons, with a custom NSView in the middle with a table view, etc. If this concept is hard to understand then here is an image:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6308/mockupo.png
The only part that might be a bit confusing is the background image. This background image is NOT the wallpaper of the computer, but part of the app. So when the app is launched, it goes into full screen mode and puts itself underneath the dock and the menu bar, and underneath all other windows too. So it draws the background image to cover the screen (including Desktop and icons). Then has a custom NSView in the middle containing my controls.
What's the best way to go about doing this?
Thanks
Make a borderless window, the size of the menu-bar screen (screen 0—not [NSScreen mainScreen]), positioned at 0,0, with window level kCGDesktopWindowLevel.
Remember that you will need to observe for screen frame-change notifications (when the user changes the screen dimensions), and that you should correctly handle the case of no screen at all (headless Mac).
I think #Peter Hosey’s solution should work, but to make other windows go on top, you will probably need to change the window level to something else.
But, I implore you, do not do this. This will be the most bugly application the Macintosh has ever seen. There are a lot of really good user interface paradigms that you can use, and "replicating" the main desktop interface of Mac OS X is generally not one of them. That is, unless you are reimplementing Time Machine or something like that.