I've got a NSTextView where I'd like to control drawing of the highlight/selection. Anyone know which method I have to overwrite so I can control what to draw in the selection rect?
You do not specify what you want to draw, so it's not easy to give you a straight answer.
If it's just an attributed string (Font, Style, Color, Background), you do not need anything fancy, just look for NSAttributedString. There are methods like -setSelectedTextAttributes: and the delegate method -textViewDidChangeSelection:
Generally, you should not subclass NSTextView if you don't have a very good reason to do so. You can do almost anything by just utilizing the usual delegation mechanisms.
If it's something very customized, there is a variety of possibilities depending on if you want to customize the selection (-setSelectedRange:) draw an overlay view (get the frame of the selectedRange) or mess around with the low level layout engine (-layoutManager). It really depends.
If you don't want to use the standard attributes to highlight text, eg by using an CALayer, you can get the rects containing the selection from the layoutManager of the NSTextView.
Related
I am trying to build a really simple NSTextField with Interface Builder (XCode 4), but the rendering is really weird with default values:
The only setting I changed is the border style:
My question:
How to display a neat Text Field “squared but with rounded corners”, like in Safari:
How to remove that “overflow:hidden” (sorry for the CSS description) which cuts the focus? < Interface Builder bug, fixed.
Should I design my own, image-based component?
Thank you!
I think I've found exactly what you're looking for. Here's what it looks like:
It's called SSTextField. Download the subclass here: http://cocoatricks.com/2010/06/a-better-looking-text-field/
What you've got at the top is a NSSearchField, which is designed for filtering/searching.
Likely the reason why the focus ring is cut off is because you've got it inside a box or overlapping another object. Don't do that.
There are no standard rounded-corner (as opposed to rounded-end) text fields; if you want one, you'll need to subclass NSTextField yourself, or just wait for Lion where the standard text field will have rounded corners.
Rounded rectangle text fields are pretty straightforward and don't require subclassing the control. Instead you can simply override the way the background CALayer of the control is drawn.
Choose the square-cornered field shape, add the QuartzCore framework to your project, and then #import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>. In your controller's viewDidLoad method you'll modify the text field's layer's cornerRadius property, a la:
myTextField.layer.cornerRadius = 6.0;
Poof, rounded-rectangle text field!
If you wanted to implement a highlighting for specific substrings in a NSTextField like on the screenshot (Tweetie.app) how would you do it? :)
Tweetie Link Highlighting http://qkpic.com/88c61
Thanks for your help!
For an NSTextField, note that it's an NSTextFieldCell that does the drawing. You'll want to override -drawInteriorWithFrame:inView: and do the string drawing yourself. The challenge will be finding the rectangles (more than one if the range is wrapped) in which your substring is drawn. You'll end up having to use NSLayoutManager and an NSTextStorage container.
Best to use an NSTextView. The associated NSLayoutManager and NSTextStorage components are already pre-assembled and you get a lot of other functionality for free. Most importantly, there's a convenient -[NSTextView drawViewBackgroundInRect:] method so you don't have to subclass anything. You just ask the text view for its layout manager and text storage, then ask it for the rectangles for the given range. See the Text System Overview and linked documents for more details.
To find the interesting substrings efficiently, you might use custom attributes (or the built-in ones such as NSLinkAttributeName) for your interesting ranges.
An alternative to consider is an editable WebView where you can build the custom attributes with CSS.
How can I add text on top of a NSLevelIndicator? [the NSLevelIndicator is in my statusbar, if that matters]
The best way to add text to your NSLevelIndicator user interface is by adding a separate Label NSTextField. The NSLevelIndicator control does not have a title or other text associated with it.
From within Interface Builder, just grab a Label and drag it to your window above or beside the NSLevelIndicator.
Contrary to the correct answer to your previous question, if you want to use an NSLevelIndicator as a background and draw text on top of it, you're better off creating a custom view that owns and uses an NSLevelIndicatorCell for the background drawing.
You might also consider drawing the background yourself; e.g., fill with your choice of green/yellow/red, and then draw a white gradient on top of it. This is more appropriate if you're not really indicating a level with your level indicator.
Also, don't forget to test your application with Sim Daltonism, to make sure that the text is still readable to color-blind users.
How do you create a custom themed NSButton? I don't mean in a small way like changing the background color or changing from rounded edges to square edges. I want to replace the entire look and feel of the button. Is that even possible to do in Cocoa? Obviously I would have to subclass the NSButton class and go from there. Any help would be much appreciated.
Actually, you need to subclass NSButtonCell. You should read Apple's documentation on this to gain a better understanding of how they interact. You probably will still want to subclass NSButton so that it will use your NSButtonCell subclass, too.
For a button, most of the work is done in drawBezelWithFrame:inView:. If you want to alter the way the text or image is drawn, you would override drawTitle:withFrame:inView: and drawImage:withFrame:inView:.
Is there a simple way to create a selectable NSRect in Cocoa? In need a rectangle that can be selected and stays selected after a mouse click.
Thanks.
NSRect is just a struct with a position and size. It's not an object that can actually do anything or have any properties other than a width and height. It sounds like what you want is to create an NSView that can be selected. (Here's Apple's Guide on the subject.)
Though not as immediate as you would like, you may be interested in the management of tracking rectangles and tracking areas performed by NSView class.
This mechanism allows you to define specific areas of your custom view. Then, an event is generated whenever the cursor enters or leaves the area, or a mouse button is pressed in this area (-mouseEntered:, -mouseExited:, -mouseDown:, -mouseUp:, -mouseDragged:, ... of NSResponder class). This up to you to define what you want your application do in response to these events (set the rectangle as selected and display it accordingly).
For an example implementation of this, take a look at the Sketch example included with the Apple developer tools (look in /Developer/Examples/AppKit). Sketch allows the user to create new graphics (including rectangles, but also ovals, lines, and text), select them, move them around in the document, etc. In particular, you'll probably want to look at the SKTGraphic class, which represents a single graphic object in the document, and the SKTGraphicView class, which is an NSView subclass that perform the actual layout and drawing, handling mouse events for dragging views around, etc.