I'm implementing a custom status bar menu, which has a custom view with NSSearchField. I'm updating number of menu items according to search results. The number of menu items is changed as user types in the NSSearchField. I've noticed, that if number of results stays the same, items titles are not updated (redrawn). How do I force them to redraw?
In the function, that rebuilds the menu I remove first all items and then create new items according to the search results.
Thanks,
Nava
I could achieve it by following approach: When the number of search results is the same, i don't recreate them, just change the title and call itemChanged:. When the count is different I recreate menu items. This works anyway. But I was advised anyway to get back from using menu for this purposes.
on the menu set menuChangedMessagesEnabled to YES when you want to update the menu:
[menu setMenuChangedMessagesEnabled:NO];
// change the menu
[menu setMenuChangedMessagesEnabled:YES];
The second invocation causes the menu to apply changes. The first one is so that you can batch a group of changes together.
That said, Apple guidelines discourages changing menus while they're open as users are not used to this and can be confusing. If it's feasible try to redesign your app so you can use something else, say a table or matrix, instead of a menu.
Related
I have a window which shows a table on the left half. On the right half I display properties of the item which is selected in the table. The user can now change these properties.
The properties are represented by different kinds of controls: textFields, sliders, numberSteppers and popUpButtons.
The user can - besides using the mouse - use the tab key to navigate through the UI Elements. When the table has the focus tab will select the first editable item on the right side, then tab walks through the items and after the last item will go to the table again.
When the table has focus and I change the value of a popUpButton or move a sliderthe default behaviour of the API (Apple's Cocoa) is to change the value but keep the focus on the table.
My intuition would tell me that after changing a control element it should have the focus (i.e. become firstResponder). But I checked some of macOS' preference panes and they behave similarly.
In Apple's Human Interface Guidelines I do not find mention of that specific topic.
So my question is:
Is there a guideline or at least best practice an app should follow regarding if a control element like a popUpButton or slidershould get the focus when clicked or edited?
The NSTableView has a feature, called Type Selection, by which the user can type the first letters of a listed item and the view automatically selects the first hit and scrolls to it.
I like to have a similar functionality in a NSCollectionView, where I list images by name.
Before I start writing such code by myself, I wonder if there is an API that can help me with this.
I am especially worred about getting the timing right, as I want to have it use the same timing as the NSTableView does. I imagine that it even changes depending on the user's System Preferences for typing. Also, the NSTableView will select other items with the same typed prefix if waiting long enough. All this can get quite complicated if I want to get it right. I don't want to miss anything.
I have CMenu instance on which I add multiple items. For one of the items I added in it, I set the MF_HILITE flag.
When I show the menu, the appropriate item get hi-lighted correctly, as requested. The problem is that it stays hi-lighted until I move the mouse over it and leave. I only want one item to be hi-lighted at the time. It seems that Windows does not un-light it when another item is hi-lighed.
How could I force it to be un-lighted as soon as another item get the hi-light? I could not find any mouse-over callback or message for the menu, and I could not find a invalidate either.
You're using MF_HILITE in a weird way. The item isn't actually highlighted, it's just drawn like it is. If the user presss enter, the "highlighted" item won't be selected.
You're probably looking for MF_DEFAULT.
It does not appear to be possible.
The internal state for the currently selected item in the menu can't be set. Using the MF_HILITE or HiliteMenuItem does not set the currently selected item, it only sets the visual style.
As a work-around, I have used a popup ListBox instead, which has all the features I need.
Simple version
Is there any way to maintain focus on menu after clicking a menu command?
Detailed version
Specifically, I've made a menu with some menu item with checked property. The problem is that each time I click checked menu item the menu lose its focus. It can be pretty annoying when there is a number of menu item with checked property and I want to manipulate them at once.
The most elegant solution for the problem would be maintaining focus on menu, but I can't find a way to apply it. Is it possible? And if so, what's the way to do that?
Even if there would a solution for it, sooner or later you will enter a situation in which a numerical or string property is changed via the menu, and then it becomes even impossible to keep the focus on the menu (while the dialog requesting the number or string is on the screen).
The first, simple alternative would be to put the checkable menu items on a toolbar or ribbon (just like Word does with Bold, Italic, Underline, ...). Numerical/string properties can then also be added on the toolbar or ribbon.
A second alternative could be to have a more complete configuration dialog in which the user can change all the configuration items. The configuration dialog can co-exist with the current checkable items, so users simply changing one check and users changing many properties all get a quick way of doing what they want.
You might also pose this question on https://ux.stackexchange.com/ (this sibling site is more oriented towards good user interface practices).
I have a datagrid with many columns. This makes it pretty wide. Now we want to add more information to the table. Aside from removing or shortening existing columns what are some ways we might be able to add additional information without adding new columnes.
The data we want to add would be one of several values. For example:
Projected
Actual
Other
For other cases when the value was an off/on or true/false we would change the color of the row. In this case that doesn't seem to be a good option.
Another thing we considered is using an icon to indicate the information.
Any other ways this could be done?
A solution i've seen implemented with grid components is to have a column chooser - some sort of popup dialog that lists the columns and you can select which ones you would like to see in the grid. You should be able to invoke this popup by triggering it from the grid, e.g. it might appear as an option when the user right clicks and causes the context menu to appear.
Can you group related information into tabs?
an overflow area? ie a number of fields underneath the table that populate based on the selected row.
or just only show the minimum needed info and the have full details in a popup when doble clicked or something..
1) Popup on row hover
2) Drop open inline in the grid with extra info on row click
One technique I've used in the past was to create a "container" type of class that has its own labels and textboxes, and you can arrange them however you want, then insert this class into a single grid column. You still have to do some tricks on binding multiple controls that are not native "grid column" controls, but should help you along. Then, you can actually have each row a single container control in a single grid column...
You can't add completely new data to a grid without reserving a column to display it. The best solution I've seen is to provide only the essential information in the grid displaying all records, and then create a drilldown view that shows all of the data for one row. The drilldown can either be a new view in the same form, a popup for an additional window, or perhaps a mouseover popup.
I've worked on systems that use all sorts of shortcuts to display every last bit of information on a single page, and I found that it just made everything more confusing and harder to use. "Oh, that little icon there means that <insert something totally unrelated to the icon picture>."