In Big Sur, Xcode and Calendar have toolbar items that stay over the sidebar when open but remain visible on the left side when the sidebar's collapsed.
Sidebar open:
Sidebar collapsed:
In "Adopt the New Look of macOS" at 13:55, John says "items placed before the separator [sidebarTrackingSeparator] will appear over the full-height sidebar", just as they are in Xcode and Calendar. I haven't been able to make this work.
Here's a sample project that demonstrates the issue. I used the IB-defined "Window Controller with Sidebar" and added a toolbar item for toggling the sidebar. In a subclass of NSWindowController I insert .sidebarTrackingSeparator after the .toggleSidebar item:
override func windowDidLoad() {
// Sometimes the toolbar items aren't loaded yet--async is a quick and dirty way to prevent a crash
DispatchQueue.main.async {
self.window?.toolbar?.insertItem(withItemIdentifier: .sidebarTrackingSeparator, at: 1)
}
}
Sometimes this has no effect (the toggle button remains to the right of the sidebar). Sometimes the sidebar toggle get put in an overflow menu:
I haven't seen any discussion of implementing this toolbar design outside that WWDC session. Has anyone been able to get this to work?
This is a IB/Code timing disagreement. Interface Builder configures and installs the toolbar before you add the .sidebarTrackingSeparator toolbar item.
So you're doing the right thing, just too late. And too later with the dispatch. I think the important thing is to have the item in there before the toolbar is set on the window.
Unfortunately, that isn't really possible with IB, unless I believe, you create a whole new toolbar and reassign it. But that's a bad idea, because then you may run into trouble auto-saving the state of your toolbar.
The trick is to configure the separator in Interface Builder. If you look at the ObjC documentation for this constant, you'll see a longer name: NSToolbarSidebarTrackingSeparatorItemIdentifier.
The best we can do here is hope that the symbol's name is the same value as the identifier. If you really want to verify this, you can just print the symbol's value in the debugger:
(lldb) po NSToolbarSidebarTrackingSeparatorItemIdentifier
NSToolbarSidebarTrackingSeparatorItemIdentifier
If we create a custom toolbar item in IB, and add that according to John's video...
low and behold:
It's easy to enable the "inspector bar" for text views so that a bar appears at the top of the screen with various formatting buttons. (Although I had some confusion until I learned to make sure I was selecting the text view in a scroll view, and not the scroll view itself). I can either programmatically use [textView setUsesInspectorBar:YES] or go to the Attributes Inspector and check the "Inspector Bar" box in the "Uses" section.
My question is, how can I further control the inspector bar? I'm having trouble finding information on it in the XCode documentation or online. I'd like to be able to position it in a different place on the screen. Being able to pick and choose which specific controls are in the bar would be great too.
The answer is, you aren't meant to further control the inspector bar. There's nothing in the documentation because, well, there's nothing. Apple's saying, use it or don't use it.
However, if you dig into it a bit, you will find that the inspector bar is a very interesting control. It's not displayed as part of the text view, but rather (privately) embedded in the "window view" itself. When I say "window view," I mean the superview of the content view.
If you list the subviews of that "window view":
NSLog(#"%#", [self.testTextView.window.contentView superview].subviews);
You end up with:
2012-08-02 15:59:30.145 Example[16702:303] (
"<_NSThemeCloseWidget: 0x100523dc0>", // the close button
"<_NSThemeWidget: 0x100525ce0>", // the minimize button?
"<_NSThemeWidget: 0x100524e90>", // the maximize button?
"<NSView: 0x100512ad0>", // the content view
"<__NSInspectorBarView: 0x100529d50>", // the inspector view
"(<NSToolbarView: 0x10054e650>: FD2E0533-AB18-4E7E-905A-AC816CB80A26)" // the toolbar
)
As you can see, AppKit puts the inspector bar at the same level as other top level window controls. Now this is getting into the land of private APIs, but simply tinkering with the "window view" shouldn't get any apps rejected.
You can try to get a reference to the __NSInspectorBarView from here. It seems like it is always the subview right after the content view, so something like this may work:
NSArray *topLevelViews = [self.testTextView.window.contentView superview].subviews;
NSUInteger indexOfContentView = [topLevelViews indexOfObject:self.testTextView.window.contentView];
if (indexOfContentView + 1 < topLevelViews.count) {
NSView *inspectorBar = [topLevelViews objectAtIndex:indexOfContentView + 1];
NSLog(#"%#", inspectorBar);
}
NSLog(#"%#", topLevelViews);
Since this immediately breaks if Apple changes the ordering of the top level views, it may not be a good idea for an application for production. Another idea is:
NSView *inspectorBarView = nil;
for (NSView *topLevelView in topLevelViews) {
if ([topLevelView isKindOfClass:NSClassFromString(#"__NSInspectorBarView")]) {
inspectorBarView = topLevelView;
}
}
NSLog(#"%#", inspectorBarView);
I don't know if the use of NSClassFromString() will pass App Store review guidelines, however, since once again, it's dependent on private APIs.
That being said, once you get a reference to the inspector bar view, things still don't work too well. You can try repositioning it at the bottom:
if (inspectorBarView) {
NSRect newFrame = inspectorBarView.frame;
newFrame.origin = NSZeroPoint;
[inspectorBarView setAutoresizingMask:NSViewMaxYMargin | NSViewMaxXMargin];
[inspectorBarView setFrame:newFrame];
}
But you end up with a misdrawn toolbar, so more work would be necessary there:
My ideas would be to try to shift the content view's height up to cover up the gray left-over area (which would have to be done every time the window is resized, maybe tinkering with autoresizing masks may make it easier) and custom draw a background for the inspector bar at the bottom.
EDIT
Oh, and you should file a feature request for this too. bugreport.apple.com
This is four years late, but I feel like someone on the internet may benefit from this in the future. I spent way too long trying to figure this out.
The inspector bar class, as the others have pointed out, seems to be a private class (__NSInspectorBarView). Therefore, it's probably not recommended to modify.
Nevertheless! The curious have to know. The inspector bar is inserted, at the time of this post (April 2016) into the window's accessory bar. You can get a list of accessory views as of OS X 10.10 using the array property in NSWindow called titlebarAccessoryViewControllers[].
Here's some Swift 2.0 code to do just that, assuming you haven't inserted any other accessory views into the window beforehand.
if window.titlebarAccessoryViewControllers.count > 0 {
let textViewInspectorBar = self.titlebarAccessoryViewControllers[0].view
let inspectorBarHeight: CGFloat = textViewInspectorBar!.frame.height // 26.0 pt
}
It's worth noting that accessory views are handled differently in full screen mode apps: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/General/Conceptual/MOSXAppProgrammingGuide/FullScreenApp/FullScreenApp.html
I personally would not attempt to move an accessory view, as they are special kinds of views designed to stay in the toolbar (if I fully understood what I have read).
NSTitlebarAccessoryViewController Reference:
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/AppKit/Reference/NSTitlebarAccessoryViewController_Class/
Another 3 years on, but I suspect some will find this useful. My specific problem was in having a window fully filled by a tabView - ideal for setting various kinds of user defaults. Only one of these tab pages had a couple of text views for which I wanted the inspector bar visible. Tabbing to that page made the inspector bar appear, and pushed the whole lot down, ruining my carefully planned layouts. Tabbing away from the page did not hide it again.
The obvious thing was to get the inspector bar to appear on the relevant tab page only. Having got hold of it ("on the shoulders of giants" - thanks to giant Vervious) it is relatively easy to reposition it in the view hierarchy. You are still left with the problem of space for an empty toolbar pushing the content down. The window's view hierarchy changes radically when the inspector bar first appears, and I gave up on trying to do anything with it.
My solution is to increase the content view's height. (Why height and not origin I can't say.)
func tabView(_ tabView: NSTabView, didSelect tabViewItem: NSTabViewItem?) {
if let inspectorBar = window!.titlebarAccessoryViewControllers.first(where:
{$0.view.className == "__NSInspectorBarView"} )?.view {
// move content view back to where it should be
var sz = window!.contentView!.frame.size
sz.height = window!.frame.size.height - 21
window!.contentView?.setFrameSize(sz)
// put the inspector where we want it
inspectorBar.removeFromSuperview()
let y = textPage.frame.size.height - inspectorBar.frame.size.height - 10
inspectorBar.setFrameOrigin(NSPoint(x: 0, y: y))
textPage.subviews.insert(inspectorBar, at: 0)
}
}
The code belongs in a NSTabViewDelegate which I made my window controller conform to, remembering to set the tabView's delegate to File's Owner in the xib, and is called whenever a new tab is selected. textPage is the view inside the relevant tabViewItem.
There are some arbitrary constants found by trial and error. The function only need run once. Repeated calls are harmless, but you could put in a flag to make an early return from subsequent calls.
You cannot do anything to position this thing.
Clearly, the corruption noted by #Vervious is real, but only if you do not have an NSToolBar.
You see, this inspectorBar is sadly a mostly private and mostly (publicly) undocumented but awesome tool. And it is very much intended for use in a window that has an NSToolBar visible... go figure.
After you have a toolbar added to your view
Still with a toolbar but hidden, and inspector bar is cool
(as in via the view menu or the method it invokes, which is toggleToolBarShown: and is an NSResponder friendly message )
So it is obvious, no you cannot do much with this. It's design is poorly documented. It works as intended as a pseudo accessory view bar under the place an NSToolbar goes (which is also not adjustable)
This code
var searchController: UISearchController!
#IBOutlet weak var collectionView: UICollectionView!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
searchController = UISearchController(searchResultsController: nil)
searchController.searchResultsUpdater = self
searchController.obscuresBackgroundDuringPresentation = false
view.addSubview(searchController.searchBar)
getItems()
}
produces this:
Screeshot1
Note that the searchBar appears as a button stuck in the upper left (because this is a tabbed app it appears under the tab bar when first presented. The "Button" button is there to receive focus for testing).
This is how it looks after pressing the button: Screenshot2
The second image shows how I would like things to look when the search tab opens, and the way I though it was supposed to look in tvOS.
How do I get the searchController to appear as it does in the second screenshot? Many tvOS apps do this, so I know it must be possible. I have been over the documentation carefully, but I must have missed something.
A related is issue is that the collectionView below won't take focus from the searchController. One has to go back using the remote menu button to get the collectionView to focus.
How can I get the searchController to appear as it does in the second screenshot when the view appears?
How can I get the collectionView to take focus from the searchController without having to go back to the tab bar?
is I finally ran across this passage in the tvOS developer library
All of the iOS first responder mechanisms work on tvOS. This allows
developers to present a UI, visible or hidden, and then make one of
the text fields the first responder by calling the
becomeFirstResponder method on it. This action causes the text field
to put up the keyboard UI without the user having to navigate to a
text field and click on it.
so, adding
searchController.searchBar.becomeFirstResponder()
displays the inline keyboard that I wanted users to start with. However, one has to press the menu button on the remote before the focus engine kicks in again. The menu button also dismisses the keyboard and searchBar returns to its button state.
This an answer to the first of my questions. Still clueless about the second.
I have a view based NSTableView with some labels in my customized and subclassed view. One of the label should be editable, so therefore I set this NSTextField to editable.
But now I have two problems, I can't solve:
1) If I move the mouse over the editable NSTextField, the cursor don't change to the IBeamCursor (the edit cursor).
2) I need to double click at the label, to be able to edit. I want to have a single click. I found some solutions for this problem here at stackoverflow, the best one is to override the acceptsFirstResponder to return always true, but then, clicking at the NSTextField selects the whole text instead of placing the cursor at the clicked position.
Sorry... this is a duplicate. I found this:
NSTableView - select row and respond to mouse events immediately
You have to subclass NSTableView. My swift code:
class TableViewEditing: NSTableView {
...
override func validateProposedFirstResponder(responder: NSResponder, forEvent event: NSEvent?) -> Bool {
return true
}
}
EDIT:
Just one disadvantage: Sometimes entering the edit mode, it seems that the text is just shortly selected and deselected. But you can see, that this is a cocoa problem, it's the same for example in Apple reminders app.
I have a Cocoa app with a table view and a few other controls. When the app launches and the window is shown, a blue focus ring is drawn around the table view.
How can I get rid of that focus ring? I'd like nothing to have the focus when the window first shows.
The window has initialFirstResponder binding that shows which control will be active when the window becomes active. Change the initialFirstResponder or adjust tableview settings in interface builder to hide the focus ring
The best way I've found of stopping any of the controls from being the first responder when a window is first displayed is in the window controller:
Swift 3:
class YourWindowController: NSWindowController {
override func windowDidLoad() {
super.windowDidLoad()
// Wait a frame before setting the first responder to be the window itself.
// We can't just set it right now, because if the first responder is set
// to the window now the system just interprets that as meaning that we
// want the default behavior where it automatically selects a view to be
// the first responder.
DispatchQueue.main.async {
window!.makeFirstResponder(nil)
}
}
}
It's messy, and sometimes when the window loads you see the focus ring starting to appear on one of the controls for one frame, but I haven't found a better way yet.