I'd like to build a NSCollectionView similar to the one in iPhoto '11. I want to group several pictures in section, and create a section header as well. The section header of a specific section is always visible until the last element of that section is visible. You can take a look at the picture to see what I mean.
EDIT: I should add that the contents are not images.
Thanks in advance
You're probably going to have to look at using CALayers directly. NSCollectionView gets most of its magic from CoreAnimation IIRC, and it looks like you might have to duplicate some of that. Alternatively you could try using nested collection views— one containing groups, then each group contains another collection view of individual items.
Either way, your view/layer hierarchy is going to be the same. You'll have a top-level container which has only one column (since groups stretch across the entire width), then each item within that will have any number of columns, based on the item width. i.e. your 'group' collection view items will stretch to fill width, but your individual items within those groups won't.
If you choose to use the raw CALayer approach, then you'll want to look at CAConstraintLayoutManager. This is what provides the magic inside NSCollectionView. A good place to start looking for information on this is Bill Dudney's CoreAnimation book from Pragmatic Programmers. Bill's now the official platform evangelist for Apple, so I think it's safe to say he knows what he's talking about in there.
Overall, I'd suggest using a nested NSCollectionView approach to start with, and look at dropping down to raw CoreAnimation only if performance seems to be lacking, or if you have issues getting some stuff to work. Using NSCollectionView lets you keep all your current NSView-ness in place, so it will be less work. If it turns out ok, then you're home & dry. If not, you've got something else to try which you can tweak to your heart's content.
Here is a similar sample:
Check this: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/samplecode/TableViewPlayground/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40010727
Related
I am trying to build a form with a phone input that includes country codes. Essentially, I am trying to make something a lot like this:
I already found and cleaned a list of flags, countries, and their codes, and built the method that creates a DropdownMenuItem for an arbitrary index. I then construct a list of them and pass it to the DropdownButton widget. It's all very simple, so I don't think the code is necessary. However, because I have so many countries, and therefore menu items, the menu lags significantly when opening. So, I was wondering if drop down menus are capable of loading large numbers of widgets in a smarter fashion than it seems they do.
Can a drop down menu could load the first 10 or so widgets around the selected index and display them, as that is all that will be in view initially, and then load the rest of the widgets asynchronously? I suspect that this will require a custom drop down menu, but I am not very well versed in the implementation of Flutter's drop down menu, so I am unsure of how to proceed with this.
Any help is appreciated.
I don't think that "loading" is the actual problem here, more likely it's the rendering/building of the widgets. You can improve the situation by using something like a ListView.builder that builds items on demand.
It seems like the default dropdown system is not based on a ListView.
You can create your own version of the dropdown (like a complete customized copy of the classes), which will require quite quite a lot of work and research.
Or alternatively, use something like a SimpleDialog with an embedded ListView to display the list. Like this one for Android.
For this question, I don't require a full explanation of all code, but helping me get insight into the process for achieving this result would be very helpful! Some information sources that will lead me to where I want to be.
Don't hesitate to give your opinion or make suggestions on how you would make it better in case you have better ideas - We just want to jump off the regular photo album system.
In the added screenshot I have added a painted image that makes the purpose clear.
Albums are created by tapping the "+" sign. (This shows a popup window in which the user can tag a bar/event to which the picture applies; the bar/event profile picture will appear on the album cover).
Newly taken pictures should appear in a separate band on the screen. They will float there until the user drags and drops them into an album. Note that the picture is also taken from within the app (using the native camera of the smartphone).
When the user added them to an album that was tagged, they will also be displayed automatically in the gallery of the tagged bar/event profile. (Of course in the app, personal profiles will be available as well).
Which technologies / workflow would you advise me?
What I need to create now is just an empty shell for the app that demonstrates the visual workflow (the data flows are not important at this point).
I have read about some libraries such as three20 or UIImagePicker, I don't know if they are easy to customize towards our needs.
Thanks!
I cannot comment on the likes of Three20 as I have never actually used them.
One method I can suggest, is using a number of scrollviews. Based on your example, you would require 2 individual scrollviews. (For ease lets call them AlbumsSV and PicturesSV).
The AlbumsSV would dynamically load content, based on your backing store. One approach I have used in the past, is to load custom views into a scroll view, as this allows for maximum control, you can specify any requirements as properties of the view (i.e Primary key etc), also you can load a 'preview image' based on the data held in your data store.
Assuming you always want the ability to add new items to be last element added to the AlbumsSV, then you can simply add another custom view to the AlbumsSV after all other items have processed.
PicturesSV would simply load content based upon what is in the users camera roll. Again I would recommend using a custom view, as you can set properties such as FileURL etc on the custom view, this will aid when it comes to dragging items into a specific album.
Hope this helps :)
How did they do it? Look at these images:
As you can see you can slide the right panel to the left and back. Is that UISplitViewController?
That's definitely a custom view/controller. The stock split view is what it is. Although I think Matt Gammell cooked up a replacement split view that let's you drag the split around, it only changes the proportional size or visibility of your two views. It would take some additional customization to give it this kind of look and feel. I don't have the URL handy though, I'm sorry.
I don't know if you still need this, but you can check this open source class called IIViewDeckController available in github - it's exactly what you need. You can set a right and a left view, add shadows, customize tap or slide interactivity.
It contains a example project so you can understand how to program all properties.
I'm new to developing on the Mac and am looking to implement an interface similar to Spotlight's - the main part which seems to be an expanding table/grid view.
I was wondering if there is a component Apple provides for creating something like this or is available open source else where.
Of course if not I'll just try and work something out myself but it's always worth checking!
Thanks for your help in advance.
New Answer (December, 2015)
These days I'd go with a vertical stack view ( NSStackView ).
You can use its hiding priorities to guarantee the number of results you show will fit (it'll hide those it can't). Note, it doesn't reuse views like a table view reuses cell views, so it's only appropriate for a limited number of "results" in your case, especially since it doesn't make sense to add a bunch of subviews that'll never appear. I'd go so far as to say outright you shouldn't use it for lists of things you intend to scroll (in this case, go with a table view).
The priority setting can be used to make sure your assumption of what should be "enough" results doesn't cause ugly layout issues by letting the stack view "sacrifice" the last few.
You can even emulate Spotlight's "Spotlight Preferences" entry (or a "show all" option) by adding it last and setting its priority to required (1000) so it always stays put even if result entries above it are hidden due to lack of space.
Lately all my UI designs for 10.11 (and beyond) have been making heavy use of them. I keep finding new ways to simplify my layouts with them. Given how lightweight they are, they should be your go-to solution first unless you need something more complex (Apple engineers stated in WWDC videos they're intended to be used in this way).
Old 2011 Answer
This is private Apple API. I don't know of any open-source initiatives that mimic it off-hand.
Were I trying to do it, I might use an NSTableView with no enclosing scroll view, no headers, two columns, right-justified lighter-colored text in the left column, the easily-googled image/text cell in the right column, with vertical grid lines turned on. The container view would observe the table view for frame changes and resize/reposition accordingly.
Adding: It might be a good idea also to see if the right/left justified text (or even the position of the columns) is different in languages with different sweep paths. Example: Arabic and Hebrew are read right-to-left. Better to adapt than to say "who cares" (he says flippantly while knowing full well his own apps have problems with this sort of thing :-)). You can test this by making sure such languages are installed on your computer, then switching between them and testing out Spotlight. Changing languages shouldn't pose an issue since the language switching UI doesn't rely on reading a foreign language. :-)
I'm trying to create a very simple selection list widget based on NSOutlineView. However, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to display an icon and a label right next to it, which is really the expected behavior in all the mainstream implementations of that kind of widget out there (iTunes, mail, Finder,...).
So far I am just binding two separate cells, but then when I'm expanding the tree, the icon cell grows larger and a gap appears between the icon and its accompanying label. I know I can probably overcome this problem by extending NSCell and provide a custom class, but as what I'm trying to achieve is really the standard thing, I can't be resigned to accept that there isn't a simpler solution.
Candide
Sadly, there isn't a 'text and icon' cell that you can just use, fresh out of the box as you would like. However, when I was working on a project, I found that Apple released some sample code that implements this, since it is such a common idiom.
This can be found here, specifically ImageAndTextCell.h/m
It can help teach you about UI customization by reading through this example, but scratching that, just dropping the ImageAndTextCell straight into your project should do just fine.
You need to create ImageAndTextcell to combine text and icon..
you can create ImageAndTextcell like this Sample Project