Apple commonly places +/- buttons below tables (NSTableView), e.g. in the System Preferences for Network or User & Groups. See image below:
How can I place identical buttons below my tables directly in Interface Builder without manipulating any interface elements in my code or subclassing any element classes?
If the table has a fixed width, the easiest way is to just use a segmented control NSSegmentedControl. First add it to your view or window:
Change its Style to Small Square, the Mode to Select None and increase the number of Segments to 4 (or keep it at 3 if you only need + and -):
The +, - and other buttons are predefined images of the AppKit framework (NSAddTemplate and NSRemoveTemplate) and directly available in Interface Builder. E.g. you could setup the first three segments as follows:
For demonstration purposes I made the - segment disabled. Unlike most other buttons, disabling a segment of a segmented control only dims the image/text, it does not change the button background. Only disabling the whole segmented control changes the background (and of course disables all segments).
Of course, the last segment should always be disabled, otherwise it would be clickable and change its background when being clicked. As it contains no image or text, it still looks the same after it has been disabled.
Switch to the size setup and uncheck the Fixed checkbox for all segments, except for the last one, make sure it is checked for the last one:
Unchecking Fixed makes the segment width dynamic, that means it will always match the minimum width required for the content.
Finally place the control directly below the table and resize it to match the table width. Here's the result:
Almost perfect, don't you think?
Things get more difficulty if the table width is dynamic (e.g. the table resizes together with the window resizing). A segmented control doesn't support autoresizing, that means you would have to programmatically change the width of its last segment each time the table is resized. Of course, that is not too hard to do and requires only little code but there is one alternative solution that requires no single line of code.
Decrease the number of segments by one and replace the last segment with a gradient button (NSButton) without title:
Its background looks exactly the same as a segmented control, yet it does support autoresizing to always match the size of the table. There is just one problem: It is clickable and this time disabling it doesn't work as this would change the background. Instead just change its Type to Momentary Change (which means the app wants to control the UI change itself when the button is clicked):
And after the button has been placed correctly and made resizable, the result looks as good as before but this time the table can be resizable and the buttons on the bottom will always fit perfectly.
Related
Desired look
I wish to make a toolbar for my app that will contain some simple buttons, each with a single monochromatic icon. Here is an example of some toolbar buttons similar to I'm trying to achieve, from Mail's compose window:
Notice these buttons have a consistent size, inner padding, padding, and shading. This is a pretty consistent style across macOS, present in Mail, Safari, Finder, etc. This leads me to suspect there's a standardized UI component for creating such buttons.
If I use a segmented control, each button looks correct, with each icon being correctly padded:
Now I would like to add individual buttons that match the style.
Attempt 1
My first attempt was to add a "Push Button" (NSButton) to the toolbar:
This resulted in a wide button that's a bit too short, and not lined up with the segmented control:
Attempt 2
My second attempt was to use a segmented control, with only 1 segment.
This resulted in a button that's the right shape, size, etc., but it was off center relative to its label.
Naturally, I can manually adjust the button to match the goal, but I feel like I'm missing something. What's the proper way to create these standard buttons?
This is actually quite easy to do and you were close already.
You can use NSButton for that. Note that it has different styles (defined in NSButton.BezelStyle) to choose from. The default one is the one to use inside windows and modals. But for toolbars, to match the style of segmented controls and search bars, you can choose the style .texturedRounded.
You can also set the style via Interface Builder. Note that you have to select the button itself, not the toolbar item around it.
To get the correct size, you seem to set the icon within the toolbar item, not the button itself.
Here is my result:
In my Xcode 6.2 Swift project I have an issue with Auto-layout (I'm also using size classes) that I'm not able to figure out...
In Main.storyboard I have a view containing, among the others interface elements, a UIButton and a UISegmentedControl that are positioned at the same height on the opposite side of the view.
I'm setting manually all the constraints in Interface Builder (none in code) and my every view is working just fine, except in this case (and this particular issue only occurs when I have a long text).
The button is aligned to the left border of the view and its constraints are:
Leading space to superview == 0
Trailing space to segmented controller >= 8
Top and bottom space to other interface elements == 8
The segmented controller (which has 2 segments) is aligned to the right border of the view and its constraints are:
Trailing space to superview == 0
Leading space to button >= 8
Top and bottom space to other interface elements == 8
The button in the storyboard has a title "Some title", but actually the actual title is always set in code in ViewWillAppear:
myButton.setTitle(aStringThatSometimesIsPrettyLong, forState: .Normal)
The visual result I need to achieve (on every possibile device and orientation) is that the Button title I set in code, while it can be displayed in good length in the interface, should never compromise the size of the segmented control, compressing the labels of the two segments.
So, I want the size of the segmented control to be fixed and I'm willing to accept the fact that the Button title, if long, can be truncated with dots.
Instead, no matter what I try (and I'll explain what I've tried in a moment) when the Button title is very long it is not truncated, instead the segmented control is compressed and therefore its two segments labels are truncated.
So far, I've tried, separately and together, these steps:
Adding a width minimum constraint to the segmented control.
Incremented (in steps, up to 1000) the Content compression resistance of the segmented control while decreasing the correspondent value of the button.
Increased (up to 1000) the Content hugging priority of the button.
I think I can't set a maximum width to the Button, because it can stretch depending on the title set in code and, more important, on what device the app is run on.
My biggest issue is that, no matter what I try, when I run the app I always get the same behavior (button title completely shown, un-truncated, and compressed segmented control). It seems like adding these constraints doesn't change anything, and it never happened to me before with Auto-layout... messing up, a lot, but no change adding constraints, this is new!
Maybe the issue is that the button title is set in ViewWillAppear and not in the Storyboard, but my app wouldn't work properly if I couldn't set its title in code.
Last, but pretty important, I have to admit that, while I've managed so far to get Auto-layout and Size classes working on all devices and orientations for all the (over 10) viewcontrollers of my app, I've actually never written a single line of code for Auto.layout and Size classes: I've done everything in Interface Builder and, if possible, I'd really love to continue this way.
Any suggestion would be really, really appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Cesare
As #KenThomases pointed out, the constraints I was setting were actually right (actually, it also works with less constraints now that, thanks to his answer, I figured out the issue), but the Segmented control wasn't getting its intrinsicContentSize. Fixed that, now everything's fine.
After much reading and experimenting, I still cannot get a simple TextView to resize fully in the horizontal direction using Xcode 5.0.2 in Mavericks. It resizes partially as the window is resized, then stops with long lines wrapped around even though my containing NSScrollView continues to resize as expected (it has four default constraints and no horizontal scroller).
Can anyone point me to a simple code/IB+AutoLayout example, preferably just a window containing just an NSTextView dragged in from the IB template library --- one that works? The Apple TextEdit sample code is almost irrelevant for this purpose although it does resize horizontally quite well. Also, there is the clip view for which I can find little information.
Any other tips appreciated.
Thanks.
Answering my own question:
Turns out that my problem had nothing to do with AutoLayout and little to do with NSTextView. It was the textfile I was using to test my code! This file was composed of records with tab-delimited fields.
Turns out that NSTextView comes with a default NSParagraphStyle with predefined tab stops that end at character 56 whereas my test file had tabs beyond that. Therefore, my lines wrapped around at the last defined tab no matter how much I stretched the window.
After changing my search terms, I found what I needed at the following links:
Premature line wrapping in NSTextView when tabs are used
How to have unlimited tab stops in a NSTextView with disabled text wrap
Apologies for wasting bandwidth.
Not sure why such a simple thing does not work in your case, but nevertheless here's what I did in Xcode to get an NSTextView follow window resize:
Create a new project (not document based in my case but it doesn't really make a difference)
Drag a NSTextView from the palette to your window. Align all four edges with the window edges.
Open the "Add constraints" pop-up (second button from the segmented control on the bottom-right part of your IB view.
Each of the four spacing constraints should show a number equal to the distance of your text view from the container window. If you aligned them, this number should be either 0 or -1. Click the down arrow for each of them and select "Use Current Canvas Value". Do it for all four. Make sure no other constraints are selected.
Click on "Add constraints" on the bottom of the panel.
Run your project. Your textview should resize with the window.
Also, as Jay's comment mentions, make sure you do not have any "leftover" constraints in your view. You can check this either by observing Xcode's warnings, or manually by inspecting your view's constraints by going to the Size Inspector tab (4th tab on the Utilities bar).
If you need to have your textview arranged in a more complex layout, it might be worth taking a look at the AutoLayout Guide.
I have made a window in which I will be having two groups/panels and some buttons in between them. I want to code the resizing behavior in a way that when the window expands, the two panels increase their widths while keeping the distance between them constant.
Please see this mockup:
As you see above, I want the 'Local' and 'Server' Panels to resize while keeping the distance in between them same. If I use anchors (Top+Left+Right+Bottom), the left panel will overlap the right one and the right's width one will go out of the window. I want them to share the increased width of the window equally.
As for the buttons in between, I have kept ancors as Top only. By removing Left anchor from button, it automatically places itself in the center of the window when window is expanded, which is just the way I want it to be.
Any ideas how to manage resizing of panels?
Thanks.
Use the TableLayoutPanel control.
First add the TableLayout to the Form and set its Dock() property to Fill.
Next you'll need to setup 3 columns and two rows. Add the two buttons to the middle column with each one is in its own row. Afterwards, setup the column values so they are like this:
Leave the rows at 50% on both.
Now add your two GroupBoxes to the 1st and 3rd columns in the 1st row.
For both GroupBoxes, set Dock() to Fill, and RowSpan() to 2.
For the top Button, turn on only the Bottom Anchor.
For the bottom Button, turn only the Top Anchor.
For the TableLayoutPanel, set Padding() to 5,5,5,5.
Here is what it looked like when I was all done:
Resize the window and observe how the controls behave...
How can I do something like that?
I didn't find any appropriate object in the Interface Builder library.
Any thoughts?
The best way that i found is to use NSSegmentedControl.
after you dragged it on the canvas, you should configure its style:
Style: Small Square
Mode: Select Momentary
looks better. Now use "image" field to set NSAddTemplate and NSRemoveTemplate. Make sure that label field is empty.
Ok, we have "+", "-" and one empty segment. To prevent the latest one to be selected by the user, select it from Segment: pop up and turn off Enabled check box (located next to State: label).
And lastly, what we have to do is set width of first two segments to make them square.
Go to Size inspector
Select Segment 0
Turn off "Fixed" checkbox (segment should immediately autoresize to fit image)
Select Segment 1 and repeat number 3
Now as you resize control, only last segment will change width
Put it at the bottom of your table view and resize as well.
Enjoy ;)
Update for OSX Yosemite
I tried to achieve the same look as Mail.app has in the Accounts view (right window on my screenshot).
I did achieve the desired result by following the steps below:
Add a NSSegmentedControl
Add two segments and set the image to each:
NSAddTemplate for the + button
NSRemoveTemplate for the - button
Set the size of the segments to fixed and set the value to 32 pixels
The rectangle next to the buttons is a NSButton with the style Gradient.
The Button is enabled but Refuses First Responder is set to true so that it is not clickable.
Use a NSButton with a gradient style, and for the images use the system provided NSAddTemplate and NSRemoveTemplate.
One answer here suggests using gradient buttons, however these buttons cannot be disabled as this causes the background to change and thus breaks the look. Another one suggested using a segmented control, which is almost perfect but segmented controls don't support autoresizing, e.g. if the table width is dynamic. My suggestion is a combination of both. Use a segmented control for the actual buttons and a gradient button to fill the rest of the table width that now can also be dynamic if the button width is dynamic as well.
See my answer to a similar question (with screenshots):
https://stackoverflow.com/a/22586314/15809