I have an NIB-based NSPanel, style Utility Panel, that I'm making a child window of my NSDocument window. I'd like it to behave like a drawer, in that it appears like part of the window, with controls drawn in their active-window state whenever the document window is main. I'm also planning on customizing the frame, close & minimize buttons.
The panel has becomesKeyOnlyIfNeeded & excludedFromWindowsMenu set to YES, and its subclassed to return YES from canBecomeKeyWindow.
The panel's NIB contains a NSSegmentedControl and a view into which I add a view from another NIB. I'm finding that the segmented control is being drawn in its window-inactive state unless the panel is clicked on to become key.
I tried a trick from OmniGroup's OIInspectorWindow & cocoadev.com's NSWindow page, implementing an _hasActiveControls method that returns YES, but that seemed to have no effect. I then tried then overriding isMainWindow to return YES whenever the parent window is the main window (plus observing the window's state change notification & calling -display). I was hoping that this would fool the control & window frame to draw in the active state. On 10.7 (Lion) it turns out that the control does indeed draw active as I wanted, though the window frame isn't. On 10.8 (Mountian Lion), not even that, the segmented control is still inactive when the window isn't key.
I can live with my trick not affecting the window frame & close button, since I plan on customizing those anyway. Does anyone know either a) why my trick doesn't work on 10.8 and how I can get it to work, or b) another way to ensure my panel's control is always active when its parent window is main.
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I want to create a borderless window floating above the main window. The main window should be the key window (I want it to handle the keyboard and mouse events). Also, the floating window should close as the user clicks outside of it. Basically, I'm creating a very custom context menu, just like NSMenu. It should behave likewise.
So I created my window this way:
NSWindow *menuWindow = [NSWindow windowWithContentViewController:menuViewController];
menuWindow.styleMask = NSBorderlessWindowMask;
menuWindow.level = NSFloatingWindowLevel;
[menuWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];
That works perfectly, but how do I handle clicks outside to close it? The window doesn't invoke delegate's windowDidResignKey, because it's not a key window. If it does overload canBecomeKeyWindow (so that it returns YES), then the floating window grabs the user input, which is not what I want.
So, is there any way to automatically close a borderless window? Can NSPanel help? I tried using it, but with no success (the becomesKeyOnlyIfNeeded selector doesn't do what I need).
To detect clicks outside the window but within your app, you could install an event monitor using +[NSEvent addLocalMonitorForEventsMatchingMask:handler:]. If you also want to close the window when the user clicks in a different app, you could observe the NSApplicationDidResignActiveNotification notification.
NSWindow has a property hidesOnDeactivate that should do this for you.
From the Apple Docs:
The value of this property is true if the window is removed from the
screen when its application is deactivated; false if it remains
onscreen. The default value for NSWindow is false; the default value
for NSPanel is true.
I created a button, and a have a little problem: When the my app launches, the button is selected. How do I disable this selection?
Example:
Caveat: This answer is incomplete: It just hides the focus ring (without preventing the selection). There's little benefit in this solution.
Set your button's focus ring type to none:
[myButton setFocusRingType:NSFocusRingTypeNone];
You can also set this option in the XIB.
First, you should know that, by default, buttons can't get focus. A user would have to have selected System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Full Keyboard Access: All Controls. If they've done that, they may want a button to initially have focus.
Anyway, the proper way to do this is to call [theWindow makeFirstResponder:nil] sometime after showing it the first time. When to do this depends on exactly how the window gets shown. If you show it explicitly in code, then you can make the call just after that. If it's shown because its Visible at Launch flag is set in its NIB, then you'd do it after the NIB is loaded. Etc.
Something should always be first responder in a window, if anything can be. Normally, only a few controls like text fields can become first responder, but when a user has Full Keyboard Access enabled, it's normal for a button to be selected by default.
If you don't want this particular button to start selected, set the window's initialFirstResponder to another control.
I'd advise against using -[NSWindow makeFirstResponder:nil]. The window will start with nothing selected, but the button will become selected as soon as the user hits tab. This is unusual for Mac apps because there's no way to get the window back into the "nothing selected" state as a user.
I have a need to spawn a window that will hover just above my main window in a cocoa application. I want this main window to allow the user to enter some text in an input box. All is well until the text input box actually gains focus. The main window becomes "deactivated." This window is borderless and is a slightly custom shape -- its more like a hover card than anything else, I suppose.
Basically, I'd like this thing to work almost exactly like Spotlight (Apple + Space) -- you can enter text, but this is such an an ancillary operation that in the context of the greater UX, you don't want the jarring effect of the main window graying out (becoming inactive). You'll notice when you have some application open and in-focus, spotlight will not cause the window of that application to become inactive.
This problem arises because text input seems to REQUIRE that the child window become the key window (it will not let you place the cursor in the text input field). When it becomes key, the main window becomes inactive.
So far I've tried:
Subclassing NSWindow for my main application and overriding isKeyWindow such that it only loses key when the application is no longer the users focus (as opposed to the window). This had the unintended effect of colliding with key status of the child window and having very strange effects on the keyboard input (some keys are not captured, like delete)
Creating a view instead of a window. Doesn't work because of this problem -- you cannot draw over a Webkit WebView these days.
Anybody Cocoa/OSX wizards have any ideas? I've become a little obsessed with this one. An itch I can't scratch.
Edit: have also tried overriding the following on the child window. When clicked, the window makes the main application window become inactive.
- (BOOL)canBecomeKeyWindow {
return YES;
}
- (BOOL)canBecomeMainWindow {
return NO;
}
Edit 2:
After screwing about with NSMenu for a while, I scrapped that approach. It seems I found something, however. In NSPanel there is a window style mask called:
NSNonactivatingPanelMask
The panel can receive keyboard input without activating the owning application.
Valid only for an instance of NSPanel or its subclasses; not valid for a window.
Trying this out now...
Edit 3: NSNonactivatingPanelMask did not do the trick. No ideas.
What you want is a window that can become the key window but which cannot become the main window. You could implement such a class yourself, but this is basically what NSPanel is for, so you might try that first.
I think this can help you:
[self.childWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];
I am making an image picker that will display an n by n grid of selectable button when the picker is popped up. This grid of buttons will be contained within an NSWindow but I would like for the window to be close automatically if the user clicks off the screen. Is there a flag that can be set so that when the window looses focus it will be closed automatically?
There are two notifications that you may be interested in: NSWindowDidResignKeyNotification and NSWindowDidResignMainNotification. You can simply register for the one you're interested in in awakeFromNib (or windowDidLoad if you have a custom controller) and then close or hide the window as appropriate when you receive the notifications.
I won't delve too much into whether or not this is a good idea from UI standpoint. But, it might be a better idea to have either an overlay view or a panel for the functionality you describe.
You might check out NSPanel. It's an NSWindow subclass that will hide itself when the app is in the background, and that behavior sounds very similar to what you are looking for.
Is it possible to launch a window in an NSView subclass by clicking a NSRect? I have tried makeKeyAndOrderFront but this doesn't work.
You can't click on a rectangle. A rectangle is just four numbers.
You can have an NSView that responds to clicks, but you should consider using NSButton instead. If you really want a custom view, you can both create the button and add it as a subview of your view programmatically. Then, set the button's target to yourself and its action to the selector of a message you'll respond to by opening the window.
One more thing: You don't launch a window. Windows aren't applications and applications aren't windows. On Mac OS X, applications have windows—always more than one (counting at least the About panel). So, you'll load the window from a nib, then make it key (respond to events) and order it front.
On that point: You probably should not have your view owning a window. Consider making a controller object to own the window instead, and having your view simply forward the message to the controller object (or even hook the button up to the controller directly).