Simple question, but I am struggling a little to understand how Interface Builder interacts with the rest of the program developed in X-Code.
My UI has an NSPopupButton that I would like to fill with an array of strings that I provide. I have a controller class that defines the method to execute when the button is clicked. Is that where I would populate the NSPopupButton? It seems like I would need to initialize is somewhere, but I am confused about exactly where to do it. I know I need to use addItemsWithTitles, but where do I call that?
Assuming the list isn't changing over time, awakeFromNib (in the controller) would be a good place to populate the menu. If it's dynamic, then you'd want to populate it when the source of those strings changes.
Related
I would like to add a file to my project, who's sole purpose would be to hold an array. I would then #import this file wherever I need to add/get from the array.
My problem is that when I create a new file (I'm using Xcode 4), I'm not sure what type of template to choose, and then what subclass to choose.
My reason for doing all of this is because I have a SplitView-Based app, and one of the views has a textfield, where I am trying to output data. My problem is that whenever I switch to a different view and then switch back, only the most recent entry is there. I am not 100% why that is but I suspect it is because when I switch to a different view, the current view is forgotten about, along with the variables in it.
This is not a good way to do it. There are many ways to do what you want: prepareForSegue: if you are using storyboards, delegation, instantiating your viewcontroller in code and setting a property in the header-file..those are just a few ways.
The way you are proposing is a slippery slope to bad Objective-C code and is only going to cause you more headaches in the future. Take the time to learn to do it right.
Check out this to get you thinking in the right direction.
How you save your data doesn't appear to be your problem. Take a look at the MVC design pattern and how view controllers implement it. They often rely on a dataSource protocol, which links the data from a "Model" to your "View" in a logical way to achieve your intended purpose.
The view controller should then be able to assign a delegate (usually itself (self) to keep the view populated with the correct data, whether the view gets unloaded or not.
If your view controller doesn't refer to a data source or a corresponding protocol, it would still be worth your time to see how you might take advantage of that design pattern. It will pay off in the long run to know this.
Instead of saving variables to a text file, you should consider using NSUserdefaults instead.
But I don't think that's the real solution to your problem, just wanted you know that there are other ways than saving stuff to a text file.
I would like to build something similar to the code-completion feature in Xcode 4. (The visual style and behavior, not the data structure type work required for code completion).
As the user is typing, a pop-up window presents other word choices that can be selected.
The Feature in action:
I'm not exactly sure where to start. I am mainly concerned with the visual appearance of the window and how I should populate the list with a given set of words. Later I will get into making the window follow the cursor around the screen and etc.
I am mainly looking for an overview of how to display such data in a "window", and how to cusomize the appearance of the thing so it looks like a nice little informational popup rather than a full-on OS X window.
Just add a subview to your current view that happens to be a tableview. Programmatically cause it to be visible on an event (such as mouseDown), and adjust it's position based on where you want it. You will need to instantiate the proper delegate/datasource methods, but it should be pretty straight forward. You will also need a source for the words you want to use in your autocomplete, and put them in an array or something for your tableview datasource to go through.
Like I said, it's not terribly hard, provided you are comfortable using tableviews and adding views to your existing view. If this doesn't explain enough, leave a comment and I can flesh this comment out more.
Add a (completions) subview to your view and set its visible property to NO. Create a separate AutoComplete object that includes the subview as a property and fills it with potential completions. Your controller can respond to key pressed (key typed) events and give the last word (substring the text from the end to the 1st preceding blank) to the AutoComplete on each event. The basic logic in AutoComplete could be something like:
Given an AutoComplete with a list of known words "dog, spaghetti, minute, horse, spare, speed"
When asked to complete a fragment "sp"
Then the following words should be offered as potential completions, "spaghetti, spare, speed"
Which would imply that you need to instantiate it with a list of words (this could be done in the init of your controller), and create a method "-(NSArray*) completeFragment:(NSString*)fragment;". You could drop this into an OCUnit test case and iterate over your implementation of autocomplete until you get it right. You would then write a method that takes the completions from AutoComplete and lists them in the subview. Even better you might create currentWord and potentialCompletions properties in AutoComplete that gets updated as you send it "newFragment:(NSString*)fragment;" messages. Throw that into OCUnit and work it out then use that potentialCompletions property to drive updated of a the subview (which is probably best modeled as a custom tableView).
I have an NSCrollView that contains an NSTableView. It has 3 columns and 4 rows. I have 4 NSStrings with content that I need to copy into the scrollview.
Using Xcode 4 I tried connecting the table or the NSTextFieldCell and then adding the text via
[_Cell1 setStringValue:MyString];
But nothing happens. It doesn't get updated.
Any way to do this?
Thank you.
EDIT:
I found the following answer to a similar question. I still am confused but after reading Apple's example about bindings I can only say that this does not make any sense, so much code to achieve something so simple. That's the problem with everything being an object and with OOP in general.
Any simple samples out there? I don't even know how to start setting this or connecting the gazillion things you need to connect to start working with this
You should use the NSTableViewDelegate. That's a set of methods the NSTableView calls to get the data that it should display. You just have to declare the delegate object of the tableview.
Delegate Protocol
NSTableView Tutorial
Unfortunately, you can't "add" or "set" the content of a table view. Like most view objects, a table view doesn't store content; it depends on a controller to provide content when it needs it.
There are two options:
Data source: simplest, easiest to understand
Binding to an array controller: harder to understand, but less work to implement
The best Apple resource on the subject: Populating Cell-Based Table Views from the Table View Programming Guide. If you're struggling, I suggest you start with the data source option. It'll be just a few lines of code, and you can adapt the simple samples from that document.
To populate the table, you need to implement these two methods:
– numberOfRowsInTableView:
– tableView:objectValueForTableColumn:row:
And to change the data, you'll need to implement one more:
- tableView:setObjectValue:forTableColumn:row:
You'll need to set your controller as the data source for the table view in interface builder. And the correct protocol for this is NSTableViewDataSource, not NSTableViewDelegate.
You could use an NSArrayController and bind the table columns' value bindings to the array controller's arranged objects. Then add the values you want to display to the array controller.
I have a class that contains several textfields. I need to know when one is done being edited and send the new information to one of my other objects.
This question seemed similar but in Objective C? The buttons should be visible when the user is done entering the value in the textfield
Objective-j doesn't have the same functions.
Browsing the documentation I found several functions that seemed like they might be able to help such as, textDidEndEditing but didn't understand how to use it. There are several more that sound related and I don't know what to use.
Summary: when the textfield is done being edited I need to perform another function. Also there are multiple textfields so I need to know which one is edited.
controlTextDidEndEditing is the delegate method you should implement. Or you can just set the target/action of the textfield
I'm really having trouble getting a Cocoa Table View cell to send action messages.
At the most basic level, in IB there is an action assigned for the NSTextViewCell object, and after editing and pressing Return nothing happens.
So I have an IBOutlet hooked up to the NSTextViewCell, and have been experimenting with NSActionCell messages to it. But the Table View seems to pretty much just ignore them.
I've also tried subclassing NSTextViewCell, but the methods I'm seeing all look like they want to pass values to the object from somewhere, not return a value from inside the object to configure its behavior.
I'm pretty new to programming and Cocoa -- can someone explain each thing that needs to be overridden and how and where to do it?
AFAIK, the cells in an NSTableView won't send action messages out to your application, they're sent to the NSTableView so it can update its data. NSTableView itself tries to be pretty clever and update your data directly, rather than just telling you something changed, so depending on what you're trying to do and what the data source for the table is, you have a few options.
If you're using an NSTableViewDataSource object to populate the table, it's simple; just implement tableView:setObjectValue:forTableColumn:row: and the NSTableView will call that every time something is edited.
If you're using Cocoa data binding (for example, using an NSArrayController to bind an array of objects to the table,) then as long as everything is wired up correctly, the data should just automagically get updated in the source objects when the table is edited. If you need to take special action, then you can do whatever you need to in the property setter of your data class.
I haven't tried it yet, but could work...
NSCell *cellYouWant = [tableView preparedCellAtColumn:tableView.clickedColumn row:tableView.clickedRow];