Creating fixed properties in InterfaceBuilder - macos

I want to write a subview which is supposed to have a fixed height. The best would be, that I cannot change it in InterfaceBuilder, because it will be used a lot. If this would work out, it would be an awesome feature for me. But all custom views are freely resizable in InterfaceBuilder in Xcode. How can I achieve this?
A good example is the NSLevelIndicator. Here the height property in the Size Inspector is disabled.
Is there a way to write my own views in such a way that a property is unchangeable? I did a lot of searching but was not lucky in finding something that matched my question.
Thank you in advance

IBOutlet NSLevelIndicator *LED;
NSRect rect = LED.frame;
rect.size.height = 10.0;
[LED setFrame:rect];

Related

NSTextView doesn’t work when placed near the top of an NSWindow

Context
I have a window with a fullSizeContentView and a transparent titlebar and hidden titlebar.
I don’t even want the titlebar, but I had to enable it to get rounded corners on the NSWindow.
Problem
An NSTextView, when placed near the top edge, doesn’t react to any clicks. It doesn‘t let me select any text, and doesn’t let me click links I added via NSAttributedString.
This issue disappears when I disable the titlebar altogether.
Any Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Big Context
I’m trying to implement little “in-app notifications” that show peripheral status updates. I considered using NSAlert but I don’t want to prevent the user from interacting with the rest of the interface while the notifications are showing, so I decided to implement it myself.
The notifications are little, non-movable windows without a titlebar. They are basically just grey rectangles with rounded corners and a shadow that draw inside the main application window and contain one or a few lines of text. The first line of text is almost entirely behind the invisible titlebar which is why I’m having issues.
The only thing I need the notifications to do besides display text is link to webpages that contain more info about a notification’s message.
I feel like I might be approaching this wrong. If you have any suggestions or ideas on how to solve the problem, I’m eager to hear them. Thanks!
I finally figured it out!
I nailed it down to the contentInsets of the NSScrollView. (which your are for some reason forced to have around your NSTextView when creating it in Interface Builder)
The contentInsets were automatically being set to account for the invisible titlebar, even though the docs say that NSScrollView - automaticallyAdjustsContentInsets (which is set to YES by default and which I assume was causing this) doesn't do automatic insets for transparent titlebars.
After programmatically setting the scrollView's contentInsets to 0, everything works great!
In Objective C, you can set your scrollView's contentInsets to 0 like this:
NSScrollView *scrollView = (NSScrollView *)self.textView.superview.superview;
scrollView.automaticallyAdjustsContentInsets = NO; // Doesn't remove insets // Probably calling this too late
scrollView.contentInsets = NSEdgeInsetsMake(0, 0, 0, 0);
Here's a working example.
Hope this helps!

Xcode UI Element -> View that points to another view

Is there a way I can make this view using Cocoa.
Also it needs to be resizable meaning the width should be depending on the text length? Thank you in advance
Yes, you can. Look at the NSPopover Class Reference.

Using both interface builder and code to set autoresizingMask

I'm going through a book and one of the challenges are setting the autoresizingMask programmatically.
The only problem is I can't check if my code is correct because it seems like the setAutoresizingMask: gets overridden by what I set in the IB.
So actually two questions:
1) Is there any way to turn off autoresizingMask in IB? I removed all settings in IB and instead of the code taking over, it seems like Xcode interprets it as autoresizingMask set to default.
2) Are my codes correct? So here's what I did.
In the view controller file...
#property (nonatomic) IBOutlet UISlider *slider;
And then I made connection in IB from File Owner to Horizontal Slider and referred to "slider."
In the app delegate file I have the viewController set as rootViewController.
[viewController.slider setAutoresizingMask:UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleBottomMargin];
Still when I simulate and change orientation, the width of the slider doesn't change.
Thanks guys!
** Actually it seems like my codes are wrong somehow... NSLogging autoresizingMask right after setting the code returns 0... Can't seem to figure out what's wrong..
You are using an obsolete tutorial. we use NSAutolayoutConstraints now (adoption guide). you would be better served figuring out how to use that.
If you really do want to use setAutoresizingMask: then turn off autolayout in your nib first, or set translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to NO on your views.

Remove border from NSScrollView/NSCollectionView

As you can see in the screenshot below, the NSCollectionView I used has some kind of border (the thin gray lines) I want to get rid of. Can somebody tell me how to achieve this? I already tried subclassing the NSCollectionView and tried to overwrite it in the drawRect: by using [[super layer] setBorderWidth:0.0f]; but this did not work.
Searching on Google, SO and the Apple Documentation did not help either. So did anyone achieved this already or knows where I can find an example of how to do it?
Thanks in advance,
Björn
The collectionView is nested in a NSScrollView, which has a borderType property.
You can get rid of the border by simply setting its border type to NSNoBorder.
self.collectionView.enclosingScrollView.borderType = NSNoBorder;
From story board:
Select the scroll view from story board
Then choose no boarder from Attributes Inspector
For Swift 3 :-
collectionView.enclosingScrollView?.borderType = .noBorder

Can I disable autolayout for a specific subview at runtime?

I have a view that needs to have its frame manipulated programmatically - it's a kind of document view that wraps to its content which is then scrolled and zoomed around a superview by manipulating the frame origin. Autolayout fights with this at runtime.
Disabling autolayout completely seems a bit harsh because it could reasonably be used to handle layout for the other views. It seems like what I might want is some kind of "null constraint".
I had the same problem. But I have resolved it.
Yes, you can disable auto layout at runtime for a specific UIView, instead of disabling it for the whole xib or storyboard which is set by default in Xcode 4.3 and later.
Set translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to YES, before you set the frame of your subview:
self.exampleView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = YES;
self.exampleView.frame = CGRectMake(20, 20, 50, 50);
I had a similar issue where Autolayout was overriding some of my frame-setting at run time (I had a dynamic view that in some cases pushed a new view controller...pushing and then pressing Back would reset the initial view).
I got around this by putting my manipulation code in viewDidLayoutSubviews of my View Controller. This seems to get called after whatever constraint mojo gets called, but before viewDidAppear, so the user is none the wiser.
Perhaps just setting translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints to YES (and not adding additional constraints affecting that view) will let you set the frame without fighting the auto layout system.
In iOS 8 you can set an NSLayoutConstraint to be active or not. So if I'm using interface builder, I add all my constraints to an OutletCollection and then activate or deactivate using:
NSLayoutConstraint.deactivateConstraints(self.landscapeConstraintsPad)
NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints(self.portraitConstraintsPad)
The particular application I'm using it for here is having different constraints in portrait and landscape mode and I activate/deactivate based on the rotation of the device. It means I can create some complex layout changes all in interface builder for both orientations, and still use auto layout without the verbose auto layout code.
Or you can activate / deactivate using removeConstraints and addConstraints.
I don't know if this will help anyone else, but I wrote a category to make this convenient because I find myself doing this a lot.
UIView+DisableAutolayoutTemporarily.h
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#interface UIView (DisableAutolayoutTemporarily)
// the view as a parameter is a convenience so we don't have to always
// guard against strong-reference cycles
- (void)resizeWithBlock:(void (^)(UIView *view))block;
#end
UIView+DisableAutolayoutTemporarily.m
#import "UIView+DisableAutoResizeTemporarily.h"
#implementation UIView (DisableAutoResizeTemporarily)
- (void)resizeWithBlock:(void (^)(UIView * view))block
{
UIView *superview = self.superview;
[self removeFromSuperview];
[self setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:YES];
__weak UIView *weakSelf = self;
block(weakSelf);
[superview addSubview:self];
}
#end
I use it like this:
[cell.argumentLabel resizeWithBlock:^(UIView *view) {
[view setFrame:frame];
}];
Hope it helps.
You can set the translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints type Boolean, Value Yes in the User Defined Runtime Attributes of the UIView you want in the xib/storyboard.
In my view I had a Label and a Text. The label had pan gesture. The label moves around fine during drag. But when I use the text box keyboard, the label resets its position to the original location defined in auto layout. The issue got resolved when I added the following in swift for the label. I added this in viewWillAppear but it can be added pretty much anywhere you have access to the target field.
self.captionUILabel.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = true
Open project in 4.5
Select storyboard
Open the file inspector
Under Interface Builder Document uncheck 'Use Autolayout'
You can split across multiple storyboards if you want to use autolayout for some views.
For me it worked to create the subview programmatically, in my case the auto layout was messing with a view that I needed to rotate around its center but once I created this view programmatically it worked.
I've encountered a similar scenario, where I joined a project that was initiated with auto-layout, but I needed to make dynamic adjustments to several views. Here is what has worked for me:
Do NOT have views or components laid out in interface builder.
Add your views purely programmatically starting with alloc/init and setting their frames appropriately.
Done.
This happened to me in a project without storyboards or xib files. All 100% code. I had an ad banner at the bottom and wanted the view bounds to stop at the ad banner. The view would resize itself automatically after loading. I tried every resolution on this page but none of them worked.
I ended up just creating a sub view with the shortened height and placed that in into the main view of the controller. Then all my content went inside the sub view. That solved the problem very easily without doing anything that felt like it was going against the grain.
I am thinking if you want a view that is not the normal size that fills the window then you should use a sub view for that.
Instead of disabling autolayout, I would just calculate the new constraint with the frame you are replacing. That appears to me to be the appropriate way. If you are adjusting components that rely on constraints, adjust them accordingly.
For example, if you have a vertical constraint of 0 between two views (myView and otherView), and you have a pan gesture or something that adjusts the height of myView then you can recalculate the constraint with the adjusted values.
self.verticalConstraint.constant = newMyViewYOriginValue - (self.otherView.frame.origin.y + self.otherView.frame.size.height);
[self.myView needsUpdateConstraints];
For those of you who are using auto layout, please check out my solution here. You should be making #IBOutlet's of the constraints you want to adjust and then change their constants.
if it's xib file:
select the .xib file
select the "File's Owner"
show the Utilities
click on: "File Inspector"
Under "Interface Builder Document" disable: "Use Autolayout"

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