I'm looking to implement a tagging interface on OSX that lets users type text "tags" to attach to an object. Ideally, I'd like to implement a fancy UI like the screenshot below:
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Note: This shows multiple states
This UI lets the user type tags, then groups them into a rounded shape when enter is pressed. They can be deleted by dragging over to highlight (shown in dark blue) and pressing delete. I think this is a slick interface for quickly jotting down a bunch of tags without having to repeatedly press form buttons.
I've seen this interface in Mail.app and a few other places in OSX, so that makes me wonder if there's some sort of cocoa class out there for this. Anyone know of one? If not, I guess I'm looking at a custom opengl view.
Take a look at NSTokenFieldCell.
Related
When editing code, Xcode is capabale of displaying in-text controls, like drop down buttons which can show context menu's. I've seen other OS X apps that handle text capable of similar features. See the attached sample.
I presume this effect is obtained using NSTextAttachmentCell - although I'm not sure whether this is the proper way to implement this.
For my own app I would like to use this technique as well.
I have the following questions:
Is NSTextAttachmentCell the correct way to implement such a feature? If not, what would be?
How do I attach a control -comparable to the one in the above sample- to a specific range of text so that its location within NSTextView is dynamic and follows layout actions?
I found this which gives some hints but does not cover the attachment to specific text ranges.
Although NSTextAttachmentCell will work, it has a disadvantage: the cell will become just a glyph in the text which was not what I wanted. It distorts the layout of the text, is selectable etc. I wanted the cell to be drawn over the text, just like the behaviour in Xcode.
The challenge was to find a way of translating a point from a Mouse Moved event to the position of a particular string of characters inside the NSTextView.
After some more digging I found a little gem in Apple's demo apps called LayoutManagerDemo. This demo shows a custom subclass of NSTextView capable of highlighting individual characters, words and lines while the mouse is hoovering its view. From there on it was pretty easy to fade in a button at the required NSPoint and then show a popup menu with some options.
I’ve been reading through several books on Mac development, but cannot find the information I’m looking for.
The books all describe how to make floating windows or panes, but never mention how to make them all in one window. A simplified example of what I’m looking to create is shown below:
Basically, there will be three windows; A selector window with radio buttons to choose which NSDocument is currently being used, a window underneath that with buttons that show different windows to the right that allow viewing and manipulation of certain data.
For a example, each NSDocument may have a color value that can be set in the window shown by clicking view A, and some text strings that can be set in the window shown by clicking view B.
So the questions are:
Is it appropriate to use a single NSDocument sub-class for each Doc #1 and Doc #2?
Which classes should I use to set up the application as shown? NSWindowController? NSWindow? NSPanel?
I’m only looking for guidance on what to read up on, so any pointers are appreciated.
EDIT:
To clarify this further, I want to have a table view where the buttons are (View A & B), and by clicking them they will cause the other window/view to change it's contents.
It's like the split view in the iPad settings application, there is a table view on the left, and when it's pressed the right side changes.
The radio buttons are there only to illustrate that I want more than one Document. I'm guessing I need more than one to handle this? Or perhaps I should place them all in a single NSDocument? Somehow that doesn't seem right.
To achieve what you want you need one window (NSWindow), one window controller and various views each with their own view controller. There are several ways you could set this up, all depending on your requirements:
You'd have at least 3 views (instances of NSView): one for the selection of the document class, one for the view selection and one for the content. Each view is controlled by a view controller (instance of NSViewController). Additionally you can opt to wrap the views in split views (NSSplitView) so your user can resize the real estate available to each view.
You have one window with a window controller. If you choose a Document based app template in Xcode, Xcode will generate a subclass of NSDocument which you can use as your window controller (or choose to use Core Data and Xcode will generate a subclass of NSPersistentDocument with all bells and whistles you need to access Core Data for document persistency).
So to come back to your questions:
1: Yes, but depending on your requirements. If Doc #1 is a completely different thing than Doc #2 than you might need to re-evaluate. For example Doc #1 might have completely different persistent requirements than #2.
2: There's no single scenario here, but one that worked for me: Take the project template for a document based app (with or without Core Data). Use the generated subclass of NSDocument (or NSPersistentDocument) as your window controller. Use NSView to implement the views in your window where each view is managed by its own controller, which is an instance of NSViewController.
I know this is an old question, but a way to do it how you want would be to use: ContainerViews and set their embed segue to be the view controllers you want.
I want to know how can I create custom widgets/controls in Cocoa.
Not a full tutorial, but some guidance on what to start looking into. I'm confused by custom views, Core Animation, etc. I feel lost.
I see a lot of cool looking controls, like in Reeder App, or Sparrow etc. For example:
The left side is a collapsable menu that includes animations etc. How can I achieve something similar? I thought of using a WebView + HTML + JavaScript, but that doesn't seem like a very optimized solution.
Controls are views, so if custom views confuse you, you'll need to get that figured out before moving on to custom controls. Although you should really read the entire View Programming Guide, the section called Creating a Custom View will get you started on creating your own views. Try creating a simple view that draws a circle, for example, or the time.
When you've got views figured out, move on to custom controls. Most controls work about the same way. The user touches them, and the control responds by: a) tracking the user's input, b) changing its value, c) sending its action message to its target, and d) giving the user some feedback by redrawing itself. To get started, first make sure that you know how to use controls. Reading Control and Cell Programming Topics should help, and the section titled Subclassing NSControl covers (obviously) creating your own subclasses.
The example you provided is pretty clearly Apple's Mail.app. The view on the left side of the window might be an instance of NSOutlineView, or it might be a custom class. Either way, NSOutlineView would be a good starting point if you want to duplicate that functionality. NSOutlineView is a subclass of NSTableView, which in turn is a subclass of NSControl, which in turn is a subclass of NSView. Read Outline View Programming Topics for help getting started -- tables and outlines are extremely useful, but also more complicated to use than basic controls like buttons and text fields.
I know it's only a part of the UI, but I've recently coded something similar to the sidebar. If you look though the source-code it may give you some help on learning how to use custom controls and cells.
You can check it out on Github:
https://github.com/iluuu1994/ITSidebar
Apples Application like Pages and Numbers always show an additional small Toolbar under the main Toolbar. Is there an object like this in the Interface Builder or do I have to build it from scratch?
I looked in the IB Library but found nothing so far.
You use NSSegmentedControl objects to do that, styled to Capsule. To achieve segmented controls with labels aligned underneath (which are clickable, like in Mail.app and Preview.app), you need to put them into toolbar button groups. That can't be done in IB. See this discussion in the Cocoa mailing list:
http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/cocoa/204390-capsule-style-toolbar-controls.html
There is no build-in control for that. You can take a look at the BWToolkit from Brandon Walkin. It has a lot of nice controls to build Apple-like applications. Maybe it can fit your needs...
It's just a simple view containing various controls. You could build most of it directly in Interface Builder. Just create an NSBox, give it a background color and then place "Mini"-sized controls in it.
I think the title pretty much says it all... I'm looking to implement an interface similar to the standard OS X sidebar used in all the above mentioned programs, and I'm wondering if anybody has any thoughts as to the easiest way to do it, namely about what view to use for the left hand selection pane. Really I don't think I even need the hierarchical component as seen in the apple apps, I just need a good looking flat list of choices which determine what's shown in the right hand pane.
The obvious start is a vertical split layout view, but beyond that I'm not entirely sure where to go. A collection view with only one column or something like that?
I've done a few applications that use a similar setup.
I generally use an NSSplitView, with a single column NSTableView in the left pane. Don't forget to disable the headers, and make it display as a "Source View" style.
If you want the disclosure triangles, then you'll want to use NSOutlineView instead of NSTableView, but at least for the first go, I'd stick to a simple NSTableView.
A pattern I also use is to make the NSTableView slightly shorter than the NSSplitView, and have buttons at the bottom (add, delete, etc). I've usually built the program around Core Data, so it's easy to hook up these to methods to create/delete objects, and then bind the NSTableView to the array of objects.
Direct support for this sort of thing was added in Leopard. It's called a 'source list'.
Please see the AppKit release notes. Search for NSTableViewSelectionHighlightStyleSourceList in the document.
Or, drag out a table view and select Highlight: Source List in Interface Builder.