NSScrollView with unclipped content view? - iphone

Is there a way I can set my scrollview not to clip its contents? (Which is a NSTextView)
I have a subclass of NSScrollView and want its content not to be clipped to its bounds.
I have tried overriding:
- (BOOL) wantsDefaultClipping{
return NO;
}
in MyScrollView and in MytextView without any effect.
In the iOS I would simply would do: myuitextView.clipsToBounds=NO; how can I do this in Cocoa?
EDIT
This is an example of what I want to achieve but in the mac
The scrollview is white, the scroller will never go outside its bounds but the text does since I did myuitextView.clipsToBounds=NO
See picture here
EDIT2
I wouldn't mind clip my view like #Josh suggested. But the real behaviour I would like to have can be explained with this picture:
Do you see the word *****EDIT***** that has being cut in the very first line?
I want the text not to be cut this way, rather I want it to completely appear and I will put a semitransparent image so it looks like it fades off when it's outside the frame.
Q: Why don't I simply put a semitransparent NSImageView on it so it looks like what I want?
A: Because 1.Scroller will be faded as well. Even if I correctly place the semitransparent NSImageView so the scroller looks fine, the cursor/caret will be able to go underneath the semitransparent NSImageView again it does not look good.
I would like to be able to control the area is clipped by NSClipView. I think that would solve my problem. Is there any alternative I have? maybe I can control the caret position or scrolling position through NSTextView so caret will never go near the top/bottom frame limits? or any work-around?
Any advice is appreciated.

Now that it's 2016 and we're using vibrant titlebars with full size content views, I'll add my thoughts to how someone might accomplish this. Hopefully, this will help anyone who came here looking for help on this, as it helped me.
This answers the question in regards to scrolling under the titlebar, but you could easily modify this technique to scroll under other things using the insets and caret position.
To get a scroll view (with or without an NSTextView inside of it) to scroll behind a titlebar, you can use:
// For transparent title.
window.titlebarAppearsTransparent = true
window.styleMask = window.styleMask | NSFullSizeContentViewWindowMask
window.appearance = NSAppearance(named: NSAppearanceNameVibrantLight)
This effectively overlays the titlebar of the NSWindow onto the window's contentView.
To constrain something to the top of the window without knowing the height of the titlebar:
// Make a constraint for SOMEVIEW to the top layout guide of the window:
let topEdgeConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(
item: SOMEVIEW, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Top,
relatedBy: NSLayoutRelation.Equal,
toItem: window.contentLayoutGuide,
attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Top, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 0.0)
// Turn the constraint on automatically:
topEdgeConstraint.active = true
This allows you to constrain the top of an element to the bottom of the titlebar (and or toolbar + any accessory views it may have). This was shown at WWDC in 2015: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014/220/
To get the scrollview to scroll under the titlebar but show its scrollbars inside the unobscured part of the window, pin it to the top of the content view in IB or via code, which will cause it to be under the titlebar. Then, tell it to automatically update it's insets:
scrollView.automaticallyAdjustsContentInsets = true
Finally, you can subclass your window and handle the cursor/caret position. There is a presumed bug (or developer error on my part) that doesn't make the scrollview always scroll to the cursor/caret when it goes above or below the content insets of the scrollview.
To fix this, you must manually find the caret position and scroll to see it when the selection changes. Forgive my awful code, but it seems to get the job done. This code belongs in an NSWindow subclass, so self is referring to the window.
// MARK: NSTextViewDelegate
func textViewDidChangeSelection(notification: NSNotification) {
scrollIfCaretIsObscured()
textView.needsDisplay = true // Prevents a selection rendering glitch from sticking around
}
// MARK: My Scrolling Functions
func scrollIfCaretIsObscured() {
let rect = caretRectInWindow()
let y: CGFloat = caretYPositionInWindow() - rect.height
// Todo: Make this consider the text view's ruler height, if present:
let tbHeight: CGFloat
if textView.rulerVisible {
// Ruler is shown:
tbHeight = (try! titlebarHeight()) + textViewRulerHeight
} else {
// Ruler is hidden
tbHeight = try! titlebarHeight()
}
if y <= tbHeight {
scrollToCursor()
}
}
func caretYPositionInWindow() -> CGFloat {
let caretRectInWin: NSRect = caretRectInWindow()
let caretYPosInWin: CGFloat = self.contentView!.frame.height - caretRectInWin.origin.y
return caretYPosInWin
}
func caretRectInWindow() -> CGRect {
// My own version of something based off of an old, outdated
// answer on stack overflow.
// Credit: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6948914/nspopover-below-caret-in-nstextview
let caretRect: NSRect = textView.firstRectForCharacterRange(textView.selectedRange(), actualRange: nil)
let caretRectInWin: NSRect = self.convertRectFromScreen(caretRect)
return caretRectInWin
}
/// Scrolls to the current caret position inside the text view.
/// - Parameter textView: The specified text view to work with.
func scrollToCursor() {
let caretRectInScreenCoords = textView.firstRectForCharacterRange(textView.selectedRange(), actualRange: nil)
let caretRectInWindowCoords = self.convertRectFromScreen(caretRectInScreenCoords)
let caretRectInTextView = textView.convertRect(caretRectInWindowCoords, fromView: nil)
textView.scrollRectToVisible(caretRectInTextView)
}
enum WindowErrors: ErrorType {
case CannotFindTitlebarHeight
}
/// Calculates the combined height of the titlebar and toolbar.
/// Don't try this at home.
func titlebarHeight() throws -> CGFloat {
// Try the official way first:
if self.titlebarAccessoryViewControllers.count > 0 {
let textViewInspectorBar = self.titlebarAccessoryViewControllers[0].view
if let titlebarAccessoryClipView = textViewInspectorBar.superview {
if let view = titlebarAccessoryClipView.superview {
if let titleBarView = view.superview {
let titleBarHeight: CGFloat = titleBarView.frame.height
return titleBarHeight
}
}
}
}
throw WindowErrors.CannotFindTitlebarHeight
}
Hope this helps!

I would simply try to observe the document view's frame and match the scroll view's frame when the document resizes.

This is a little hairy. AFAIK, NSViews can't draw outside their own frame. At any rate I've never seen it done, and I was somewhat surprised when I realized that UIView allows it by default. But what you probably want to do here is not manipulate clipping rectangles (doing any such thing inside NSScrollView will probably not do what you want or expect), but instead try to cover up the vertically-truncated text lines with either layers or views that are the same color as the background. Perhaps you could subclass NSClipView and override viewBoundsChanged: and/or viewFrameChanged: in order to notice when the text view is being shifted, and adjust your "shades" accordingly.

You might consider using a translucent layer to achieve this appearance, without actually drawing outside your view. I'm not certain of the rules on iOS, but on the Mac, a view drawing outside its bounds can cause interference with surrounding drawing.
However, you can set the clipping region to be whatever you like inside your scroll view subclass's drawRect: using -[NSBezierPath setClip:]:
- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect {
[NSGraphicsContext saveGraphicsState];
[[NSBezierPath bezierPathWithRect:[[self documentView] frame]] setClip];
//...
[NSGraphicsContext restoreGraphicsState];
}
It might be possible (since you asked) to use this code in an NSClipView subclass, but there's not much info about that, and I think you may have a hard time making it interact properly with its scroll view. If it were me, I'd try subclassing NSScrollView first.

Related

UITextView Moves to Left on Keyboard Show

I have an app with a build target of IOS 14 that is causing a problem regarding automatic positioning of the view on keyboard show.
I have a UITextView that is draggable and can be positioned partially outside of the main view that it sits within. If the field is large enough then it will extend beyond the parent view and safe area also. The parent view has clipsToBounds set as true so the overflow of the text view is not visible.
The problem is when the text field is positioned so that its right hand side is outside of the safe area and the keyboard is presented, the screen automatically scrolls left to include the far right edge of the text view, even though it is not visible due to clipsToBounds being set on its parent. I need to disable the behaviour that is causing this to happen but can't find anything that covers this for UIKit.
See below for a visual example. Can anybody please help?
Image 1
Image 2
Edit:
The structure of the screen is:
View Controller:
.....UICollectionView:
..........UICollectionViewCell:
...............UIView:
....................Elements (UITextView in this case)
func calculateCarouselOffset(formHeight: CGFloat) -> CGAffineTransform {
let carouselOffset: CGAffineTransform!
let currentElementMaxY = returnCurrentElementMaxY()
let elementMaxYTransformRemoved = currentElementMaxY + -self.scalingCarousel.transform.ty
let newFormOriginY = safeAreaFrame.height - formHeight
let topOfFormMargin: CGFloat = 20
if (newFormOriginY - topOfFormMargin) < elementMaxYTransformRemoved {
// Form will overlap element - move carousel view to compensate
let oldToNewLocDist = (newFormOriginY - topOfFormMargin) - currentElementMaxY
let moveScreenBy = self.scalingCarousel.transform.ty + oldToNewLocDist
carouselOffset = CGAffineTransform(translationX: 0, y: moveScreenBy)
} else {
// Form will not overlap element - reset carousel view
carouselOffset = self.formDeactivate
}
return carouselOffset
}
And it is called as below:
func textViewDidChage() {
let backgorundTransform = calculateCarouselOffset(formHeight: currentElementFormHeight)
let modifyBackground = UIViewPropertyAnimator(duration: 0.2, curve: .linear, animations: {
self.scalingCarousel.transform = backgorundTransform
})
modifyBackground.startAnimation()
}
It looks like this is (possibly new?) built-in behaviour for text fields. I reproduced this both with a collection view controller and a view controller holding a collection view. The text field moves itself to visible like this:
I found this by adding a symbolic breakpoint on contentOffset and then making a field editable - there are a lot of calls before you get to this point because it's also adjusting things for the keyboard coming up.
Unfortunately in your case, I think the scroll view is moving the text field's visible bounds into the visible area, which means you're scrolling horizontally since the text field is off screen.
You can't override scrollTextFieldToVisibleIfNecessary as it is private API. There are probably some hacks you can do by overriding becomeFirstResponder but they seem quite likely to either not work, or break other things.

NSScrollView not scrolling

I have a form in a Mac app that needs to scroll. I have a scrollView embedded in a ViewController. I have the scrollView assigned with an identifier that links it to its own NSScrollView file. The constraints are set to the top, right, and left of the view controller, it also has the hight constraint set to the full height of the ViewController.
Here is my code:
import Cocoa
class ScrollView: NSScrollView {
override func draw(_ dirtyRect: NSRect) {
super.draw(dirtyRect)
// Drawing code here.
NSRect documentView.NSMakeSize(0, 0, 1058.width, 1232.height)
}
override func scrollWheel(with event: NSEvent) {
switch event.phase {
case NSEvent.Phase.began:
Swift.print("Began")
// case NSEvent.Phase.changed:
// Swift.print("Changed")
case NSEvent.Phase.ended:
Swift.print("Ended")
default:
break
}
switch event.momentumPhase {
case NSEvent.Phase.began:
Swift.print("Momentum Began")
// case NSEvent.Phase.changed:
// Swift.print("Momentum Changed")
case NSEvent.Phase.ended:
Swift.print("Momentum Ended")
default:
break
}
super.scrollWheel(with: event)
}
I cant seem to get my app to scroll at all. I think I am not setting the frame correctly. What is the best way to do set the frame correctly? Am I coding the NSScrollView correctly?
I think you are making your life very hard because you are doing things that are not exactly recommended by Apple. First of all, you should not subclass NSScrollView. Rather you should read first Introduction to Scroll View Programming Guide for Cocoa by Apple to understand how you should create the correct hierarchy of views for an NSScrollView to work correctly.
A second recommendation is for you to check this nice article about how you should set up an NSScrollView in a playground, so that you can play with the code you want to implement.
Third, using Autolayout and NSScrollView has caused a lot of grief to a lot of people. You need to set up the AutoLayout just right, so that everything is going to work as expected. I recommend that you check this answer by Ken Thomases, which clearly explains how you need to set up auto layout constraints for an NSScrollView to work properly.
I just got over the "hump" with a NSScrollView inside a NSWindow. In order for scrolling to occur the view inside the NSScrollview needs to be larger than the content window. That's hard to set with dynamic constraints. Statically setting the inner view to a larger width/height than the window "works" but the static sizes usually are not what you want.
Here is my interface builder view hierarchy and constraints, not including the programmatically added boxes
In my app the user is adding "boxes" (custom draggable views) inside the mainView, which is inside a scrollview in a NSwindow.
Here's the functionality I wanted:
If I expanded the NSWindow, I wanted the mainView inside the scrollview to expand to fill the whole window. No scrolling needed in this case if all the boxes are visible.
If I shrank the NSWindow, I wanted the mainView inside the scrollview to shrink just enough to include all my mainView subviews ("boxes"), but not any further (i added a minBorder of 20). This results in scrolling if a box's position is further right/up than the nswindow's width/height.
I found the trick is to calculate the size of the mainView I want based on the max corner of each draggable boxview, or the height/width of the content frame of the nswindow, whichever is larger.
Below is my code, including some debugging prints.
Be careful of which subviews you use to calculate the max size. If you include a subview that's dynamically attached to the right/top of the window, then your window will never shrink. If you add +20 border to that, you might infinite loop. Not a problem in my case.
extension MapWindowController: NSWindowDelegate {
func windowDidEndLiveResize(_ notification: Notification) {
if let frame = window?.frame, let content = window?.contentRect(forFrameRect: frame) {
print("window did resize \(frame)")
var maxX: CGFloat = content.width
var maxY: CGFloat = content.height
for view in mainView?.subviews ?? [] {
let frameMaxX = view.frame.maxX + minBorder
let frameMaxY = view.frame.maxY + minBorder
if frameMaxX > maxX {
maxX = frameMaxX
}
if frameMaxY > maxY {
maxY = frameMaxY
}
}
print("view maxX \(maxX) maxY \(maxY)")
print("window width \(content.width) height \(content.height)")
mainView?.setFrameSize(NSSize(width: maxX, height: maxY))
}
}
}

UIButton action is not triggered after constraint layouts changed

I have got an UIButton on a storyboard ViewController. When I load data into the form and the layout is significantly changing the button does not recognise the touch action.
I have figured out that when button is visible on the scrollview right after it if filled with data, the touch action works.
If the data too long and the button is not visible at first, just when it is scrolled into the display, the touch action does not work.
I was checking if something is above the button, but nothing. I have tried to change the zPosition of the button, not solved the problem.
What can be the issue?
I have made custom classes from the UIScrollView and the UIButton to check how the touches event triggered. It is showing the same behaviour, which is obvious. If the button is visible right at the beginning, the UIButton's touchesBegan event is triggered. If the button moves down and not visible at the beginning, it is never triggered, but the scrollview's touchesBegan is called instead.
Depending on the size of the data I load into the page sometimes the button is visible at the beginning, but the form can be still scrolled a bit. In this case the button still work, so it seems that this behaviour is not depending on if the scrollview is scrolled before or not, just on the initial visibility of the button.
Is there any layout or display refresh function which should be called to set back the behaviour to the button?
The code portion which ensures that the contentview is resized for the scroll if the filled data requires bigger space.
func fillFormWithData() {
dispDescription.text = jSonData[0]["advdescription"]
dispLongDescription.text = jSonData[0]["advlongdesc"]
priceandcurrency.text = jSonData[0]["advprice"]! + " " + jSonData[0]["advpricecur"]!
validitydate.text = jSonData[0]["advdate"]!
contentview.layoutIfNeeded()
let contentRect = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: scrollview.frame.width, height: uzenetbutton.frame.origin.y+uzenetbutton.frame.height+50)
contentview.frame.size.height = contentRect.size.height
scrollview.contentSize = contentview.bounds.size
}
Ok, so another update. I have coloured the contentview background to blue and the scrollview background to white. When I load the data and resize the layout constraints, the contentview is resizing as expected, however now the scrollview is going to the bottom. After I scroll the view it is resizing to the original size which fits the screen. Now the button is only recognised when I touch the are which is blue behind. With the white background it is not recognised anymore, so it seems that the scrollview is hiding the button.
Let me get this clear the button is added in storyboard and it is a spritekit project?? If you are using zPosition?? Why don’t u connect the UIButton via the assistant editor as an IBAction then the action is always tied to the button.
You can also do it differently
Create an SKLabelNode and put it on the screen where you want to have the button and then set a name to it as myButton
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event:
UIEvent?) {
if let touch = touches.first {
let location = touch.location(in: self)
let tappedNodes = nodes(at: location)
for node in tappedNodes {
if node.name == "myButton" {
// call your action here
}
}
}
}
EDIT 1:
You could also try auto resizing your scrollView.content this works also if you are adding any views via the app or programmatically
private func resizeScrollView(){
print("RESIZING THE SCROLLVIEW from \(scrollView.contentSize)")
for view in scrollView.subviews {
contentRect = contentRect.union(view.frame)
}
scrollView.contentSize = CGSize(width: contentRect.size.width, height: contentRect.size.height + 150)
print("THE CONTENT SIZE AFTER RESIZING IS: \(scrollView.contentSize)")
}
EDIT 2: I think I found the issue with your project. You need to move the MessageButton(UzenetButton) above DispDescription label in the object inspector in that way it will always be above your message textView.
At the moment the UzeneButton is at the very far back in your view hierarchy so if your textView is resizing whilst editing it covers the button that is why you cannot click on it.
See #Endre Olah,
To make situation more clear do one more thing, set clipToBound property of contentview to true.
you will notice that after loading of data your button not fully visible, it means it is shifting out of bound of its parentView (ContentView)
And that's why button is not taking your touch. However, if you carefully touch upper part of button it still do its job. Because upper part is still in bound of ContentView
Solution :
After loading of data you have to make sure that you increase height of ContentView such that button should never go out of bound of its parentView(ContentView).
FOR EXAMPLE
#IBOutlet var heightConstraintOfContentView : NSLayoutConstraint!
After loading of data
let contentRect = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: scrollview.frame.width, height: uzenetbutton.frame.origin.y+uzenetbutton.frame.height+50)
heightConstraintOfContentView.constant = contentRect.size.height
contentView.layoutIfNeeded()
I use following steps when I need to use scrollview with dynamic content:
1) Firstly add a scrollView with top, bottom, trailing and leading is 0 to super view.
2) Add a view to scrollView and view's trailing, leading bottom and top space to scrollView can be set to 0 (or you can add margin optionally).
3) Now, you should add UI elements like buttons, labels with appropriate top, bottom, trailing and leading margins to each other.
4) Lastly, add equal height and equal width constraint to view with Safe Area:
and change equal height priority of view to 250:
It should solve your problem with UIScrollView.
Finally, I have found the solution in another chain, once it became clear that the scrollview's contentview is resizing on scroll event to the original size. (Not clear why this is like this, but that is the fact.)
So I had to add a height constraint to the contentview in the storyboard and create an outlet to it and adjust this constraint when the content size is changing, like this:
#IBOutlet weak var ContentViewHeight: NSLayoutConstraint!
func fillFormWithData() {
dispDescription.text = jSonData[0]["advdescription"]
dispLongDescription.text = jSonData[0]["advlongdesc"]
priceandcurrency.text = jSonData[0]["advprice"]! + " " + jSonData[0]["advpricecur"]!
validitydate.text = jSonData[0]["advdate"]!
contentview.layoutIfNeeded()
let contentRect = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: scrollview.frame.width, height: uzenetbutton.frame.origin.y+uzenetbutton.frame.height+50)
contentview.bounds = contentRect
scrollview.contentSize = contentRect.size
----------- This is the key line to the success ----------
ContentViewHeight.constant = contentRect.size.height
----------------------------------------------------------
}
After this is added, it works perfectly.

unable to scroll the textview in Swift

I have a TextView as shown below
I am not able to scroll the text view , I have added UITextViewDelegate in UIViewController class as well as set isUserInteractionEnabled property in textViewDidBeginEditing
func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.lightGray
textView.isEditable = false
textView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
textView.isScrollEnabled = true
}
What did I need to do?
Also, the scrolling is enabled in attribute inspector
This issue has occurred because the actual UITextView's size was more than screen size as shown below
The real answer is that the UITextView needs its content frame height inferior to its content size height to be able to scroll.
In your case, the content frame height is equal to the content size, so it doesn't scroll.
You just have to set the leading left, trailing, top space and bottom space to the View, but first make sure the Text View is smaller than the actual View (parent).
It starts to get complicated when you have a UITextView on a UIView which is either a view on a UIScrollView or directly on a UIScrollview.
The best thing to do, is to give each of them their own actions when scrolling.
Firstly, make sure you have all of your delegates for EVERYTHING set.
Make sure your UITextViews are not user restricted for what they don't need to be.
What I have to do in one of my published apps is this👇
func scrollViewWillBeginDragging(_ scrollView: UIScrollView)
{
if scrollView == textView1
{
// Do something if you actually want to, or just let textView1 scroll as intended
}
else if scrollView == textView2
{
// Do something if you actually want to, or just let textView2 scroll as intended
}
else if scrollView == zoomingScroll
{
// Do something if you need to or leave it
}
else
{
// Do something with all the other scrollable views if you need to
}
}

Tracking the position of a NSCell on change

I have a NSTableView and want to track the position of its containing NSCells when the tableView got scrolled by the user.
I couldn’t find anything helpful. Would be great if someone can lead me into the right direction!
EDIT:
Thanks to #Ken Thomases and #Code Different, I just realized that I am using a view-based tableView, using tableView(_ tableView:viewFor tableColumn:row:), which returns a NSView.
However, that NSView is essentially a NSCell.
let cell = myTableView.make(withIdentifier: "customCell", owner: self) as! MyCustomTableCellView // NSTableCellView
So I really hope my initial question wasn’t misleading. I am still searching for a way how to track the position of the individual cells/views.
I set the behaviour of the NSScrollView (which contains the tableView) to Copy on Scroll in IB.
But when I check the x and y of the view/cells frame (within viewWillDraw of my MyCustomTableCellView subclass) it remains 0, 0.
NSScrollView doesn't use delegate. It uses the notification center to inform an observer that a change has taken place. The solution below assume vertical scrolling.
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
// Observe the notification that the scroll view sends out whenever it finishes a scroll
let notificationName = NSNotification.Name.NSScrollViewDidLiveScroll
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(scrollViewDidScroll(_:)), name: notificationName, object: scrollView)
// Post an intial notification to so the user doesn't have to start scrolling to see the effect
scrollViewDidScroll(Notification(name: notificationName, object: scrollView, userInfo: nil))
}
// Whenever the scroll view finished scrolling, we will start coloring the rows
// based on how much they are visible in the scroll view. The idea is we will
// perform hit testing every n-pixel in the scroll view to see what table row
// lies there and change its color accordingly
func scrollViewDidScroll(_ notification: Notification) {
// The data's part of a table view begins with at the bottom of the table's header
let topEdge = tableView.headerView!.frame.height
let bottomEdge = scrollView.bounds.height
// We are going to do hit-testing every 10 pixel. For best efficiency, set
// the value to your typical row's height
let step = CGFloat(10.0)
for y in stride(from: topEdge, to: bottomEdge, by: step) {
let point = NSPoint(x: 10, y: y) // the point, in the coordinates of the scrollView
let hitPoint = scrollView.convert(point, to: tableView) // the same point, in the coordinates of the tableView
// The row that lies that the hitPoint
let row = tableView.row(at: hitPoint)
// If there is a row there
if row > -1 {
let rect = tableView.rect(ofRow: row) // the rect that contains row's view
let rowRect = tableView.convert(rect, to: scrollView) // the same rect, in the scrollView's coordinates system
let visibleRect = rowRect.intersection(scrollView.bounds) // the part of the row that visible from the scrollView
let visibility = visibleRect.height / rowRect.height // the percentage of the row that is visible
for column in 0..<tableView.numberOfColumns {
// Now iterate through every column in the row to change their color
if let cellView = tableView.view(atColumn: column, row: row, makeIfNecessary: true) as? NSTableCellView {
let color = cellView.textField?.textColor
// The rows in a typical text-only tableView is 17px tall
// It's hard to spot their grayness so we exaggerate the
// alpha component a bit here:
let alpha = visibility == 1 ? 1 : visibility / 3
cellView.textField?.textColor = color?.withAlphaComponent(alpha)
}
}
}
}
}
Result:
Update based on edited question:
First, just so you're aware, NSTableCellView is not an NSCell nor a subclass of it. When you are using a view-based table, you are not using NSCell for the cell views.
Also, a view's frame is always relative to the bounds of its immediate superview. It's not an absolute position. And the superview of the cell view is not the table view nor the scroll view. Cell views are inside of row views. That's why your cell view's origin is at 0, 0.
You could use NSTableView's frameOfCell(atColumn:row:) to determine where a given cell view is within the table view. I still don't think this is a good approach, though. Please see the last paragraph of my original answer, below:
Original answer:
Table views do not "contain" a bunch of NSCells as you seem to think. Also, NSCells do not have a position. The whole point of NSCell-based compound views is that they're much lighter-weight than an architecture that uses a separate object for each cell.
Usually, there's one NSCell for each table column. When the table view needs to draw the cells within a column, it configures that column's NSCell with the data for one cell and tells it to draw at that cell's position. Then, it configures that same NSCell with the data for the next cell and tells it to draw at the next position. Etc.
To do what you want, you could configure the scroll view to not copy on scroll. Then, the table view will be asked to draw everything whenever it is scrolled. Then, you would implement the tableView(_:willDisplayCell:for:row:) delegate method and apply the alpha value to the cells at the top and bottom edges of the scroll view.
But that's probably not a great approach.
I think you may have better luck by adding floating subviews to the scroll view that are partially transparent, with a gradient from fully opaque to fully transparent in the background color. So, instead of the cells fading out and letting the background show through, you put another view on top which only lets part of the cells show through.
I just solved the issue by myself.
Just set the contents view postsBoundsChangedNotifications to true and added an observer to NotificationCenter for NSViewBoundsDidChange. Works like a charm!