Pages-style table drop-down menu

FROM : John Brownlow
DATE : Mon Apr 11 17:22:40 2005

In Pages the styles drawer has a column which works as follows.

If the current row is selected, it shows a drop-down arrow.

If the current row is not selected, mousing over the cell shows a
drop-down arrow.

Clicking on a cell in the column does not select the row, but pops up a
menu which allows you to perform various actions on the style in the
row you are clicking on, while remaining deselected.

This is actually a very compact and clever design (I say this having
tried out several alternatives!) but what is the simplest and cleanest
way of implementing it? I guess the column should be filled with
ImageCells... but how to pop up the appropriate menu, or change the
highlighted state? Or should the column be filled with NSButtons... and
if so, how?

(As a challenge am trying to do as much of this stuff with bindings and
NIB configuration as I can, rather than writing glue code... having
poked around in the Pages NIB however this is not the approach they
took ... probably for pre-10.3 compatibility).

--
John Brownlow
Deep Fried Films, Inc

http://www.johnbrownlow.com
http://www.pinkheadedbug.com