I would like to create a Table View to display a list of items that users can click to start actions and would like to visually group them in categories.
In iOS is relatively easy have sections in a Table View but in macOS I haven't find documentation about this.
I found this article by Marcin Krzyżanowski of May 2015 http://blog.krzyzanowskim.com/2015/05/29/lets-talk-about-sections-for-nstableview/, it's excellent but I would like to implement a simpler solution to avoid problems when maintaining code I don't understand well.
I haven't managed to find a way to use sections in NSTableView either, and I like your approach...don't just copy and paste code you don't understand :)
What I have done when I needed sections in a macOS app was to use the "new" NSCollectionView (https://developer.apple.com/reference/appkit/nscollectionview) (it has been around since 10.5 but got a major overhaul in 10.11). It is somewhat similar to UICollectionView and gives you the ability to use sections.
So...
Instead of UICollectionViewDataSource you have NSCollectionViewDataSource (https://developer.apple.com/reference/appkit/nscollectionviewdatasource)
where you can use numberOfSections(in:) and collectionView(_:numberOfItemsInSection:) for instance. Furthermore you have makeSupplementaryView(ofKind:withIdentifier:for:) which can be used to create your section header views.
This tutorial from Ray Wenderlich is worth having a look at.
I know it is not exactly what you were looking for but maybe you can use it. Good luck :)
Related
I'm currently working on developing a desktop application for MacOS for downloading batches of audio files from URLs at one time I've run into a question about UI design that I can't figure out.
I have a class called SongEntry.swift that holds information regarding the URL that was entered (e.g. url, title, length, author, etc.) and I want to create a vertically growing list of custom views that updates when a new one is added.
Where is what the base view looks like:
Inside of the big white area is where I want the list to be held.
I've tried to create a separate view controller that handles each entry but that didn't work. I know UI design for MacOS is much different from iOS, however I think what I'm looking for is a way to simulate the table views and cell prototypes from iOS but can't find a suitable option.
If anyone knows of a possible solution or can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it!
What you want is one of the collection views. For vertical list, you'll probably use NSTableView with only one column and hide everything else like headers.
Here are roughly the steps you need:
You can use your existing view controller or create a dedicate view controller for just the table (and use the 'embed' option in Interface Builder)
This view controller will adopt the NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate protocols to provide the data (your SongEntry objects) and the view for each row.
You set your NSTableView's source and delegate to your view controller.
You create a view which will serve as your "cell", it will be used by each row to display the data. You can design it either in IB or in code.
The entire process is described in detail in the Table View Programming Guide for Mac.
This topic can be a bit confusing. Note that there are two main approaches: the view-based and NSCell-based tables. Don't bother with the NSCell way, it's more of a legacy leftovers.
Also note that there are some overlap of methods in both NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate to provide data and views that can be a bit confusing at first. Just play around with the code and samples and it will be clearer which delegate method to use when.
There are many examples both on Apple's developer site and github. Also a good tutorial on raywenderlich.com.
I'm building in content inside of a NSTableView, but when I compile and run, it cuts off the top half of all the content within the NSTableView. I'm brand new to the Swift language so I am quite lost here. I can provide further examples as necessary. Is there something simple I am missing first or is this more specific to my use case?
I can quickly give you a few directions to go looking for help.
Firstly the Apple Documentation for it. https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/TableView/PopulatingView-TablesProgrammatically/PopulatingView-TablesProgrammatically.html
You may note that there are essentially two ways of populating the table view, programmatically by implementing the methods of NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate protocols. And by using Cocoa Bindings. I recommend, as a beginner, to use the first option and look at either example code or videos that use these protocols.
Secondly, this may be just a UI issue in your storyboard, make sure your constraints are set properly. You may just have some weird behavior going on here with other views.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you more help without code snippets or more information
I have a table (UITableView) and shall implement therefore the functions like in the iphone email-interface. This means: In the header right up I need a edit-button. When pressed, some cells can be marked and in the footer there appear several buttons.
Is there a library, where I can take the functionality from? If not, any idea, how I can Implement the "marking function"?
There's a cool example among the apple docs, which I guess meets well your request. Inspect it, I think you'll find much useful there:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/iPhoneCoreDataRecipes/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40008913
Is there some sample code, or an easy way, to implement an application with as its first view something like Springboard?
What I am looking for is just a view with basic icons which after a tab on an icon tells the view-controller to push the view associated with the selected icon.
This in itself is not that difficult off-course (just putting images on a view), but is there an easy way to implement all the extra functionality as well (as e.g. moving the icons around (start 'vibrating' when when you push hold them), multiple pages etc.). The Facebook App seems to have this. It is probably not worth my while to write it myself, but it would be nice if there is something 'out of the box' to give the App a bit more of an iPhone feel.
Thanks in advance!
Facebook uses the Three20 library for its UI. The specific view used for the SpringBoard-like interface is known as TTLauncherView.
This is not an endorsement (I have yet to really check this out, and I may be too entrenched in using Three20 at this point to even bother), but here is another project that implements the springboard functionality: myLauncher on Github
You can use UICollectionView to create this
Look at this example
https://github.com/tularovbeslan/Springboard
I have a UITableViewController which is starting to get a bit crazy with all the switch statements for each UITableView delegate.
Does anyone have any suggestions or examples of more of a data driven implementation for a UITableViewController? I'm thinking some type of data structure which would hold references of where to go to get cells for certain section/rows, where to get the section names, etc.
I think the More iPhone Development book describes something like this, just wanted to poll the community and see if anyone had some lessons learned on their own implementation.
I don't think there is a standard one that is generally suitable for everyone, but it's not too hard to whip up your own to suit the needs of your application. Basically, you want an array/list of sections, and for each section, an array/list of items. For each item, you'll want to allow specification of an image, text, detail text, and some sort of action to be fired upon selection.
If you want to get fancy, you can specify background colors, fonts, and other such things for each section heading, section footer, and item.
If your list items don't all look the same, then your tableView:cellForIndex: implementation needs to be smart enough to use different reuse identifiers for different-looking items.
A nice thing about this approach is that you can often use the same view and same controller for many "screens".
Consider using Core Data and NSFetchedResultsController.
Core Data's NSFetchedResultsController will do most of the data work for you. It might be overkill if your model is simple or not persisted though.