Hi I've seen this question asked a few times already but with no definite answer yet so I created it for xcode 7 and swift2 (which may have changed things a bit anyway).
I created a project using Xcode 7 and Cocoa OSX Story boards + swift2, so my project started with a NSWindowController that Connects to a NSViewController (as expected!). I added a NSToolbar to my window controller and added a NSButton to the toolbar. I changed my NSViewController to be one of the new NSSplitViewController that links to three NSViewControllers and displays their views horizontally - with vertical dividers - (similar to the layout you see in the photo app or pages in Yosemite +). My final goal will be that the button in My toolbar shows and hides the first split.
It is my understanding is, and I would expect that to achieve this I should create an action in the NSSplitViewController that changes the auto layout constrains more or less in the way they are working it out here: How to do collapse and expand view in mac application?.
And then somehow link this action to the NSButton that is in the Toolbar... which happens to be in the NSWindowController (far up and isolated in the hierarchy)...
I have already gone through other questions about NSToolbar and storyboards and failed to accomplish my goal:
The YouTube video: Cocoa Programming L17 - NSToolbar which is the closest I found to solve the problem, but his method does not work for storyboards, only creating your own xib file.
In this question: How to use NSToolBar in Xcode 6 and Storyboard? One person proposes to make the link using the first reponder and expecting everything to hook up at run-time (which looks a bit dodgy and not the way apple would implement it I think...). A second person suggested to create a view controller variable in the NSWindowController and manipulate its properties from there... but again, a bit dodgy too.
One latest comment I saw in that question which seems the best way to tackle the problem (but still not as good as I guess it could be) is to add a NSObjectController to the dock of each scene and when the scene loads, set the values of the objects to the other secene's controller. Is this really the best way to go ahead? If so, how could I achieve this one?
Apple did mention (again) in WWDC15 that they created storyboards for osx and the split-view controller that owns view-controllers so that you can move your logic and work to the specific view-controller, so I would be expecting to do everything from inside my split-view controller as this is the target that needs to change.
Does anyone know how to achieve this from the view controller itself? I really haven't been able to find a way to connect my ToolBarItem to it.
OK, I've created this question quite a few days ago and no answer so far so I've answer with what I recently did to overcome the problem.
After I created my Xcode project I did this:
Created a subclass MySplitViewController for the NSSplitViewController
Added an IBOutlet for each NSSplitViewItem. For example:
#IBOutlet weak var mySplitViewItem: NSSplitViewItem!
Created a subclass WindowController for the NSWindowController
Added an IBAction in the WindowController class that links to the NSToolbarItem (my button)
Added a property that gets the Window Controller's content as MySplitViewController
var mySplitViewController: MySplitViewController {
return self.window?.contentViewController as! MySplitViewController
}
Now I can access the split view controller's property from the Window Controller in the action I created:
mySplitViewController. mySplitViewItem.collapsed = true
I created some sample code that does this (but using a view controller and changing the text for a label here, just in case someone wants to see a working project with this behaviour. And a blog post about it too :)
One person proposes to make the link using the first reponder and expecting everything to hook up at run-time (which looks a bit dodgy and not the way apple would implement it I think...).
I think this first responder method is actually the proper way.
As an example:
Add something similar to the following, in whichever view controller makes sense.
#IBAction func doSomething(_ sender: AnyObject?) {
print("Do something.")
}
This will magically show up in the first responder:
In your storyboard, right-click the orange "first responder" icon above your window controller, and you should see doSomething in the very long list. You just need to connect that up to your toolbar button.
In the following screen capture, you can see my "Toggle Sidebar" button is connected to the toggleSidebar action in my first responder.
I didn't even have to write this method — it's provided by NSSplitViewController:
#IBAction open func toggleSidebar(_ sender: Any?)
So, I was working this same issue and finding no solution as you experienced. I read your post and was trying to figure how I would implement your solution when it occurred to me to use a notification. In about 30 seconds, I had a perfectly fine working solution:
In your windowController add an IBAction to post a notification like so
-(IBAction)toggleMasterViewClicked:(id)sender
{
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:#"TestNotification" object:nil];
}
Hook up that action to your NSToolbarItem, then in the viewController add self as an observer for that notification like so
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:#selector(toggleMasterView:) name:#"TestNotification" object:nil];
In your case, selector would be updateMyLabelText
I don't really see any downside here. No reference to other objects needed, no dependancies. Works flawlessly for me
While connectiong IBActions works by using either the First Responder or by adding an "Object" to the scene, then changing its class to the window's view controller class, this doesn't help with IBOutlets and delegates that you'd like to point to the view controller.
Here's a work-around for that:
Add the Toolbar to the View Controller, not to its Window. That way, you can make all the IBOutlet connections in the View Controller Scene easily. I've done that for years and found no issues with it, even when using Tabs.
You'll have to assign the window's toolbar in code, then. E.g. like this:
#interface ViewController ()
#property (weak) IBOutlet NSToolbar *toolbar; // connect this in your storyboard to the Toolbar that you moved to the View Controller Scene
#end
- (void)viewWillAppear {
[super viewWillAppear];
self.view.window.toolbar = self.toolbar;
}
Related
I'm fairly new to Mac development and am slightly confused by the new "storyboard" feature in Xcode 6. What I'm trying to do is segue from one view controller to another in the same window. As of right now, all the different NSViewControllerSegues present the view controller in a new window, be it a modal or just another window. What I'd like to do is just segue within the same window, much in the same way one would on iOS (though an animated transition is not crucial). How would this be achieved?
If you provide a custom segue (subclass of NSStoryboardSegue) you can get the result you are after. There are a few gotchas with this approach though:
the custom segue will use presentViewController:animator so you will need to provide an animator object
because the presented view is not backed by a separate Window object, you may need to provide it with a custom NSView just to catch out mouse events that you don't want to propagate to the underlying NSViewController's view
there's also a Swift-only glitch regarding the custom segue's identifier property you need to watch out for.
As there doesn't seem to be much documentation about this I have made a small demo project with custom segue examples in Swift and Objective-C.
I also have provided some more detail in answer to this question.
(Reviving this as it comes up as first relevant result on Google and I had the same problem but decided against a custom segue)
While custom segues work (at least, the code given in foundry's answer worked under Swift 3; it needs updating for Swift 4), the sheer amount of work involved in writing a custom animator suggests to me that their main use case is custom animations.
The simple solution to changing the content of a window is to create an NSWindowController for your window, and to set its contentViewController to the desired viewController. This is particularly useful if you are following the typical pattern of storyboards and instantiate a new ViewController instance every time you switch.
However.
The NSStoryboard documentation says, quite clearly in macOS, containment (rather than transition) is the more common notion for storyboards which led me to look again at the available tools.
You could use a container view for this task, which adds a NWViewController layer instead of the NSWindowController outlined above. The solution I've gone with is to use an NSTabViewController. In the attributes inspector, set the style to 'unspecified', then select the TabView and set its style to 'tabless'.
To change tabs programatically, you set the selectedTabViewItemIndexof your TabViewController.
This solution reuses the same instance of the ViewControllers for the tab content, so that any data entered in text fields is preserved when the user switches to the other 'tab'.
Simple way with no segues involved to replace the current view controller in the same window:
if let myViewController = self.storyboard?.instantiateController(withIdentifier: "MyViewController") as? MyViewController {
self.view.window?.contentViewController = myViewController
}
I've been trying to build on a Cocoa app that uses Swift and Storyboard in Xcode 6, but how can I use NSToolbar there?
In Xcode 5 and xib, you can add NSToolbar from within Object Library to any .xib files and then click on the added toolbar to expand it and drag and drop a connection from any items there to a AppDelegate.h file. In this way you can create a IBAction or IBOutlet connection. I confirmed that this can also be done if you use Swift and non-storyboard in Xcode 6. However, it looks like this is not the case in Xcode 6 and Storyboard environment.
I first created a project that uses Storyboard in Xcode 6, but then, I wasn't able to add a NSToolbar from within Object Library to a View Controller in Storyboard. So I added it to Window Controller's Window object in Storyboard. However, in this way I cannot create those connections from any items in the expanded toolbar to either AppDelegate.swift or ViewController.swift.
So my question is:
Is it feasible to create a storyboard app that uses NSToolbar?
If it is feasible, is the addition of NSToolbar to the Window Controller the proper way to use NSToolBar in Storyboard?
Finally, how can I create #IBOutlet and #IBAction connections there?
UPDATE
I found that the accepted answer by #GeorgeVillasboas only works for #IBAction. I am still looking for how to create an #IBOutlet connection...
I had this very same problem.
The solution works for both Objective-C and Swift projects.
Working with Storyboards on OSX, it creates an instance of NSWindow and segues to another NSViewController as its Window Content Segue, as you described.
On your ViewController, create a standard IBAction to receive the action when the toolbar is clicked. To wire it up with the NSToolbar, just control-drag (or leftClick-drag) from your NSToolbarItem to the FirstResponder object, as shown on the picture below.
This will open a HUGE list of available connections. Your IBAction will be on that list.
Just selected it and you're good to go.
Hope this helps!
Here's an answer that doesn't rely on run-time hook-ups - #cdalvaro's answer gets most of the way there for some applications, but isn't full, and it requires the ViewController to know about the artificial NSWindowController, which doesn't feel right.
Like #cdalvaro, the first step is to build your own subclass of NSWindowController, and to set the Storyboard WC to that class. You can then create all of your connections to and from the NSToolbar (both #IBOutlets & #IBActions) in the new WindowController. So far so good.
The last step, which I haven't seen anywhere else, is how to refer to the ViewController in the WindowController - you can't create an #IBOutlet to it - for the same reasons that we got here in the first place - you can't create references across scenes in the Storyboard. However, the WindowController must have a reference to the ViewController, and it does... self.window!.contentViewController! as! ViewController
Here's a complete WindowController with a checkbox that sets values in the ViewController, without the ViewController having to know anything...
class MyWindowController: NSWindowController {
var viewController: ViewController {
get {
return self.window!.contentViewController! as! ViewController
}
}
#IBOutlet weak var aSwitch: NSButton!
#IBAction func toolbarActionA(sender: AnyObject) {
println("toolbarActionA")
self.viewController.a = !self.viewController.a
self.aSwitch.state = self.viewController.a ? NSOnState : NSOffState
}
}
This helped me for the IBOutlet solution you are looking for:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/27555237/3398062
Update (explanation)
I discovered this thread because I was trying to create a Circular Progress Indicator inside the toolbar and I didn't know how to animate it from the ViewController since the IBOutlet was declared inside a custom WindowController.
Finally, I found the post that I have added above which describes how to access to IBOutlets from other classes.
In essence what I have done is the following:
Create a custom NSWindowController subclass (CustomWindowController) for the Window Controller so I can add the IBOutlet for the ProgressIndicator:
Code Example:
#interface CustomWindowController : NSWindowController
#property (weak) IBOutlet NSProgressIndicator *progressIndicator;
#end
Then in the ViewController class, in the method I want to use to update the state of the Progress Indicator, I create and object of the custom Window Controller.
Code Example:
CustomWindowController *customWindowController = self.view.window.windowController;`
Finally, to change the state of the Progress Indicator there is only to call the method from the created custom object.
Code Example:
[customWindowController.progressIndicator startAnimation:sender];
or
[customWindowController.progressIndicator stopAnimation:sender];
This video helped me how to create a toolbar without writing a single line of code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQocHG3IjA
You can add the 'Window Controller' item from the Object Library (if you don't have one), connect to a View Controller (where you want your toolbar to display) and follow the video! For custom Toolbar buttons add 'Image Button' item to the Toolbar just by dragging from the Object Library. Then you can pick an image for a button, set the size and so on...
Here is a general solution for the outlets and actions. it allows you to preform all the the same functions as an iboutlet would for a tool bar item and also allows you to set the button to a function instead of creating an ibaction. hope it helps :P
override func viewDidLayout() {
var x = self.view.window?.toolbar?.items[1].label
println(x)
if(self.view.window?.toolbar?.items[0].label! != "Check")
{
toobarediting()
}
println("didlay")
}
func toobarediting() {
self.view.window?.toolbar?.insertItemWithItemIdentifier("Check", atIndex: 0)
}
func toolbarcheck(functiontoset: Selector) {
var y = self.view.window?.toolbar?.items[0] as NSToolbarItem
y.action = functiontoset
if(functiontoset != nil)
{
y.enabled = true
}
}
Here is a link to my question attempting to get a cleaner answer
http://www.stackoverflow.com/questions/27371439/use-nstoolbar-outlet-xcode-6-and-storyboard/27374449
but it looks like from the answers i have gotten so far this is the best option.
The same problem of IBOutlets also applies to KVO. One of the features of the NSSplitViewController is the canCollapse property for each split view item which supports KVO, but this is unusable in IB just like IBOutlets.
The only workaround I can see is to add a NSObjectController to each scene and when the scene loads, set the object controller's object to the object in the other scene (already loaded) that you want to reference.
I have a UIViewController embedded in a UINavigationController. The rootViewController now contains already some buttons as leftBarButtonItems.
Now when I push a new UIViewController on top of the UINavigationController I want the new UIViewController to keep the existing leftBarButtonItems extended with the Back-Button.
Right now the situations is as follows: When I push the new UIViewController then the existing leftBarButtonItems disappear and only the Back-Button is visible.
Each UIViewController has it's own "navigationItem" property, which acts as the navigation bar representation for that viewcontroller. When you add buttons to the navigationItem of a particular UIViewController they are limited in scope to the viewcontroller to which they were added, and they don't persist into other viewcontrollers.
Basically, you'll have to add the buttons to the navigationItem of each viewcontroller as it loads. You can make this simpler by writing adding a method to do this work to a class other than your UIViewControllers. What happens when you touch each button might be viewcontroller specific though, so you'll have to think through how touch actions will be fed back to the relevant viewcontroller. Perhaps introduce some kind of NavigationBarDelegate protocol or something?
I found what seems like a hacky way to get around this when pushing multiple instances of the same view controller on to a detail view controller which I assume would work similarly. Before pushing the new view controller I used this: (browser is my new view controller)
self.browser.navigationItem setLeftBarButtonItem:self.detailViewController.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem animated:YES]; // Sets popover view controller button.
[self.detailViewController.navigationController pushViewController:self.browser animated:YES];
This probably isn't a good way to do it but it seems to work in my situation.
So I'm just trying to create a very simple app for demo purposes here:
Created a Single View Application, using storyboards
Added a UIView to the storyboard
Added the following code to my controller's header file:
#property (weak, nonatomic) IBOutlet UIView *myView;
Now, I understand that I can link the UIView to the controller by:
arranging my code such that the header file is next to the storyboard
holding down Ctrl key and dragging it to the property in the header file
My question is this: can I do this without Ctrl-drag? And if so, how?
More specifically - it's annoying to have to put both my header file and storyboard on screen at the same time, and it seems there should be a way to make this connection without doing so.
I also understand that I can manually place the view by creating it inside my controller's viewDidLoad function, but I'd really like to use the interface builder to simplify / visualize things.
Edit: Is the answer to my question affected whether I use storyboards or xib/nib files? (I'd switch to use the one where it works)
you should be able to right click the element, and drag the "referencing outlet" item to the view's "File's Owner" in interface builder. There, it will give you a list of all available IBOutlets (matching the object's type).
In addition to Dima's answer, you can just as well use the Connection inspector in the Utilities pane
I am pretty new to coding and would like to know how to switch XIB views on a button click. IS there also anyway to add animation when switching?
Thanks,
Kevin
this is totally possible, but there are a few things you'll need to do. I imagine you are already familiar with connecting outlets to objects in your XIB, so the first thing you need to do is create the custom views in your XIB and connect them to outlets in your appDelegate. I suggest that one of the views be dragged into the window and one one be outside the window. That way, when the window loads, it already has one of your custom views as a subview. This just makes it easier to get started.
Then you're going to write an IBAction in the appDelegate and connect it to your button. Assuming that one of the custom views is already being hosted by the window, the IBAction should send a replaceSubviewWith message to the window's contentView animator like this [[window.contentView animator] replaceSubview:firstView with:secondView]; where firstView and secondView are the pointer/outlets that you declared and connected to the views in your XIB.
This is sending the animator proxy of the window's content view a message which tells it to replace the old subview with the new one. The reason for sending the message to the view's animator proxy (and not the view itself) is that the transition will be carried out with the deafult CATransitionAnimation. Because you want it to be animated, right?
The reason why you shouldn't remove one subview and then add another is because animating the removal of a subview is actually quite tricky and requires the implementation of the delegate method animationDidEnd. This is because executing an animation on a view that has been removed from the view heirarchy does not make sense. I don't know why Apple hasn't changed this, but for now it will be one of the enduring quirks of CoreAnimation.
Let me know if that helps. I am happy to clarify! And welcome to Cocoa!
An easy way to do this is to use a tabless NSTabView- you can lay everything out in IB so the pain is minimal.