NSSplitView resizes the custom NSView contained - cocoa

Question

I've a vertical NSSplitView, the bottom subview contains a custom view (eg NSView) and a NSTextView.
The NSView contains inside it two NSButtons.
When I resize the splitView, making it smaller, the NSView containing the buttons is resized, too.
I don't want this behavior.
To better explain my problem please view the attached image.
Image 1: the window at application startup, everything is ok
Image 2: I've resized making smaller the split view, only a little part of buttons is visible
Image 3: I've enlarged again the split view but as you can see the NSView remains smaller and buttons are no longer visible (if I resize the splitView to bottom the NSView 'disappears')

Answer 1

This is a vicious problem that's based on the legacy workings of Cocoa views. The best solution I've seen is to constrain the minimum dimension of any portion of the split view. If the subviews never collapse, their metrics don't cross into another dimension and they should re-enlarge just fine.
To do this, set up a delegate for your split view, which will implement - splitView:constrainMaxCoordinate:ofSubviewAt:. The split view will call your delegate method hoping it can leave the max divider position at the height of the split view (passing this in as the second argument), but you can simply subtract some quantity from that value (say, 60) to return it as the minimum height for the bottom view.
- (CGFloat)splitView:(NSSplitView *)aSplitView
constrainMaxCoordinate:(CGFloat)proposedMin
ofSubviewAt:(NSInteger)dividerIndex {
return proposedMin - 60;
}
Of course, you'll probably want to do more checking in this method to make sure you're talking about the right split view, and the right subview, to avoid overreaching effects, but this is the basic idea.
(See also this fabulicious article on the subject.)

Answer 2

Constraining the divider position did not help in my case, as I'm animating the subviews and subviews can be collapsed.
I managed to achieve an acceptable solution by implementing the splitView delegate method -splitviewWillResizeSubviews: (means, you have to connect the delegate property from the split view to your controller in IB or in code) to maintain a minimum width by setting the subview to hidden instead of shrinking it to zero:
- (void)splitViewWillResizeSubviews:(NSNotification *)notification {
NSUInteger divider = [[[notification userInfo] valueForKey:#"NSSplitViewDividerIndex"] intValue];
NSView *subview = nil;
if(divider == SPLITVIEW_DIVIDER_SIDEBAR) {
subview = (NSView*)[self.splitView.subviews objectAtIndex:SPLITVIEW_SIDEBAR_INDEX];
}
if(subview) {
if(subview.frame.size.width < SPLITVIEW_MINIMUM_SIDEBAR_WIDTH) {
CGRect correctedFrame = subview.frame;
correctedFrame.size.width = SPLITVIEW_MINIMUM_SIDEBAR_WIDTH;
subview.frame = correctedFrame;
subview.hidden = YES;
} else {
subview.hidden = NO;
}
}
}