Re: Adding HUD context pannel to rows within NSOutlineView

FROM : Corbin Dunn
DATE : Wed Nov 28 19:48:02 2007

On Nov 28, 2007, at 9:10 AM, Tim Perrett wrote:

> Hey Corbin
>
> Thanks for the reply. Ive been looking at the DragNDropOutlineView 
> example, and I found this comment
>
> "On MacOS 10.5 and later, in willDisplayCell: we can dynamically set 
> the contextual menu (right click menu) for a particular cell. If 
> nothing is set, then the contextual menu for the NSOutlineView 
> itself will be used. We will set a different menu for the 
> "Expandable?" column, and leave the default one for everything else."
>
> Which Im guessing is what you meant about making it easier in 10.5? 
> Isn't that using NSMenu however? rather than a panel which I belie 
> those little HUD windows are?


Tim -- you are right. I am talking about NSMenu, but your original 
email seems to indicate that is what you wanted:

> What I would like to end up with is on my outline view (that already 
> works no problems), when the user right-clicks one of the rows, I 
> would like that one to become the selected row, and a context menu 
> to popup beside, from which I can set some parameters. I have read 
> about the menu outlet, but im not sure if thats the right way to go, 
> and even if it is, what it needs to be connected to?


A context menu is a regular menu; not a HUD. I would discourage you 
from creating UI that does something other than pop up a context menu 
on the right click; it won't be what people expect, and isn't easily 
discoverable. Apps that use HUD's typically bring them up in some 
other way. For instance, they have a button in the cell to bring it 
up, a toolbar item (Aperture), or an item in the context menu itself 
(iCal).

If you really want to do a HUD, you will probably have to subclass 
NSTableView, override mouseDown:, call super (to do all the work of 
tracking and changing the selection), and then show your HUD if it was 
a right click.

--corbin