In interface builder I added a menu item to the main menu. I can click on the menu and access its contents, however the title of the menu item doesn't show when running the program.
The image shows the application and its menu on top and on the bottom is the application as it appears in IB. Notice that where the menu in IB has the "Calculate" menu option, the running application has in its menu a space instead.
In the menu bar, there is an NSMenuItem which contains an NSMenu. Both have a "Title" property. In Interface Builder, what you see in the menu bar is the title of the NSMenuItem. In the application, what you see is the title of the NSMenu. If the NSMenu's title is not set, then you'll just see an empty string, which is what you've shown in your screenshot.
Click on the Menu item in Interface Builder so that the attached menu shows up. You can then set the title.
Note that in Interface Builder, if you drag a Menu Item to the menu bar, you get an NSMenuItem without any NSMenu attached. I suspect that's what you've done. You can drag a Menu on top of the NSMenuItem to add a menu to it, and then you can set the menu's title correctly. If instead of dragging a Menu Item, however, you drag a Submenu Item, then the attached NSMenu is already present, and it automatically updates the title when you change the text in the menu bar.
Related
I have a series of NSButtons on a window, whose menu property is connected to a common NSMenu in the storyboard. In the action method triggered by that menu's item(s), I would like to find out which button was right-clicked to open the menu. How can I do that?
The event ([[NSApplication sharedApplication] currentEvent]) does not seem to contain that information.
I'm creating an application where a menubar seems to be the most convenient way to have the user's desktop clean without a window. I've seen many tutorials online and on stack overflow but they seem to be only for Objective-C. I only use Swift. If you don't know what a menubar is, they're these icons:
I would like my app to have one of these instead of a constant full window. And if I can, how can I have a button on my menubar that brings up the window. Lastly, how can I have my icon not show, but I still have the finder advantages. (Like File, Edit..). For example,
I have already tried to put
Application is Agent (UIElement) to False
in my Info.plist but that also takes away my finder advantages.
Presumably what you're saying is that you want the text editing items (like Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All) from the Edit menu to work in your app's window.
Those menu items are part of another application, and only send messages in that application. They aren't available to your application, regardless of whether it's an “agent” (with no visible menu bar of its own). If one of your agent app's windows is the key window and the user clicks on a menu title (like File or Edit) that belongs to another app, then that app will activate and your app's window will “resign” the key window status.
You can make the usual shortcut keys (like ⌘X for Cut) work for your app, and it's easy. When one of your app's windows is the user's key window, your app receives keyboard events, and your NSApplication object (created for you automatically) will check its mainMenu for keyboard shortcuts even though the main menu is not displayed on the screen.
The OS X “Cocoa Application” project template sets up a main menu bar for you in MainMenu.xib (or in Main.storyboard), with all of the menu items wired up to the appropriate actions. So if you keep that main menu bar and the Edit menu and the menu items in the Edit menu and leave the shortcuts set on those items, then the keyboard shortcuts will work even if you set LSUIElement to YES in your Info.plist, when one of your app's windows is the key window. In other words, the shortcut keys will work by default, and you have to change things to make them stop working.
Text fields in your app's windows will also still get the default right-click menu with the usual items like Cut, Copy, and Paste, so you don't need to do anything else to make that work either.
Here's the contents of my test app's MainMenu.xib:
I've left the main menu bar alone. I've created a separate menu with two items, “Show Window” and “Quit”. I've set the shortcut for “Quit” to ⌘Q, but this shortcut has no effect. The StatusItem > Quit menu item (not visible in my screen shot) off the main menu bar has the same shortcut set, and that's the setting that matters. I've set the shortcut on this other Quit item because it's visible to the user, and the main menu bar won't be visible to the user.
I've wired this Quit item to the terminate: action of First Responder. (The StatusItem > Quit menu item is connected the same way by default.)
Here's my AppDelegate:
#NSApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {
#IBOutlet var window: NSWindow!
#IBOutlet var statusItemMenu: NSMenu!
var statusItem: NSStatusItem?
func applicationDidFinishLaunching(aNotification: NSNotification) {
self.statusItem = NSStatusBar.systemStatusBar().statusItemWithLength(NSVariableStatusItemLength)
let statusItem = self.statusItem!
let button = statusItem.button!
button.title = "Hello"
statusItem.menu = statusItemMenu
}
#IBAction func showWindow(sender: AnyObject) {
NSApp.activateIgnoringOtherApps(true)
window.makeKeyAndOrderFront(sender)
}
}
I've wired the “Show Window” menu item to the showWindow(_:) action, and I've connected the statusItemMenu outlet to that standalone menu in the XIB.
I also set “Application is Agent (UIElement)” to “YES” in Info.plist.
When I run this app, it creates the status item in the menu bar. I can choose “Show Window” from the item and my window comes to the front and becomes key. I can right-click the text field to get its context menu. I can use the standard shortcuts to cut/copy/paste/etc., to close the window, and even to quit the app.
I have a OS X application. The app works fine, and the first menu item is the app's title, "Elision". However, under the "Elision" and "Help" menus, the title displayed is "Test". How do I change this?
Open the xib or storyboard file containing the menu, and select the menu item(s) you wish to change. You may set the menu item titles as desired via the Inspector:
This question is in response to Drag and Drop with NSStatusItem
The code from #rob Keniger works for me. Following these exact steps, When I run the app, click the menu bar icon, I can drag things to my drag area and everything works. My problem is if I run the app, (then instead of clicking the menu icon first) click Finder, then click the menu bar icon, when I try to drag, the menu closes as I'm dragging.
How do I make the menu view stay open every time the user has the menu open and is dragging?
Looks like you have to do this:
[NSApp activateIgnoringOtherApps:YES];
XCode works in mysterious ways (at least to me).
I simply want to create a Preference pane in my app. When I run my app, the stock menu bar comes up (Apple, MyApp, File, Edit...) and the "Preferences" menu item is grayed out. It makes sense since I haven't started playing with it.
How on earth do I add/remove/activate/inactivate menu items? I'm not talking about adding anything new, simply using what should be there.
Thanks in advance.
NSMenu has "Auto Enable Items" enabled by default. That means if the menu item does not have it's action message hooked up, it will appear grayed out. So in your case, you would simply set the Preferences menu item's "Sent Action" to whatever action shows your preferences window. This can be hooked to some sort of showPreferencesWindow: method of your AppDelegate, or directly to the showWindow: method of a window controller.
To dynamically enable/disable menu items the best way is to implement the NSUserInterfaceItemValidation protocol which is excellently documented here
Edit: Your app's menu bar items live in the MainMenu.xib file. The menu bar appears as a "Main Menu" object on the left hand side (if you're using Xcode 4) Simply click on the items to modify them, and you can Ctrl+drag connections to and from them like any UI object.