Is there any way to remove the dotted line rectangle, which indicates the keyboard focus, on a Win32 common control, without owner draw or subclass them?
It seems that under WPF one can control the visual style of the focus rectangle, but I failed to find corresponding API on a Win32 common control.
You can send it the WM_CHANGEUISTATE message or subclass it and fake the parameters in response to WM_UPDATEUISTATE
I don't believe there is a simple style that allows you to turn off the focus rect on a list view control. The only way I've ever seen it done is with an owner draw control. I know this is not the answer you were looking for, but there are examples of owner draw controls that do this available... just so you don't have to do all the work. :)
Related
I've got a search-suggestion box that I've implemented by using an NSScrollView that appears when you start typing in an NSTextField. I'd like my window to be quite short, and have the ScrollView draw partially outside the window. Like this:
But instead I get this:
What can I do?
You can't have controls that extend outside of a window. What you need to do is put them in a separate window. You generally want that window to be a child of the original window (using -[NSWindow addChildWindow:ordered:]).
For the use case you describe, you should use the built-in control, NSComboBox. If you really want to reimplement this sort of control, Apple provides the CustomMenus sample code and a related WWDC video. It specifically includes a suggestions menu to help fill in a text field.
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.
Is it possible to make an NSColorPanel 'Pop Up', almost like a popup menu, from the NSColorWell?
I don't like how it's implemented as a palette, as it's sometimes not obvious which NSColorWell it's associated with.
Thanks!
MT
No, you'd need to create your own color inspector and color well. To get it to pop up above your existing control, you'd need to create a child window and attach it to your existing window. The color palette controls would go in the child window.
However, I'd recommend you avoid doing this. The existing color palette mechanism is time-tested and works across multiple applications.
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.
I have an NSCell subclass that I do all kinds of custom drawing in. The only time things seem to be entirely out of my control is when right clicking a cell to show the associated context menu. While showing it's context menu, the table (or cell - not sure which exactly is doing this) draws a focus rect. I would like to get rid of this, or at least find a way to draw my own version of it that better fits within my interface.
I have tried about 15 different methods that seem like they could give me control over this focus rect drawing itself (various first responder methods, various drawing methods, various highlight color methods, etc.), but I have yet to find something that changes anything about it.
Screenshot of the problem: http://twitpic.com/3zx2t
I am almost annoyed enough to class-dump AppKit and try to find whatever private method it's using to draw this annoying focus rect. Nothing else I do has any effect on it. Any help here would really save both my sanity and lots of future hair pulling.
Thanks so much!
Without completely overriding your table view's -drawRect: this is the only other way I know to get rid of the context menu highlight rect.
- (void)_drawContextMenuHighlightForIndexes:(NSIndexSet *)rowIndexes clipRect:(NSRect)rect {
return;
}
This is the method, used in Leopard at least, to draw the highlight around cells that will be activated upon by a context menu. It is unfortunately called directly by NSTableView's -drawRect: method and as far as I know there is no other way to signal your disinterest in having those highlights drawn.
Of course this is private API, it may stop working in Snow Leopard, or some other release. But at worst that means that somewhere along the way the context menu highlight may start up again in your programs on newer releases or some other functionality using this method may not work later. You have been warned.
On 10.5 and later, NSTableView allows you to bring up a contextual menu on any item in the table (that is, without having the side effect of changing the selection.)
It draws that 'focus rect' to indicate which item(s) are being acted on by the contextual menu.