Is it possible to design NSCell subclasses in Inte

Question

I'm trying to subclass NSCell for use in a NSTableView. The cell I want to create is fairly complicated so it would be very useful if I could design it in Interface Builder and then load the NSCell from a nib.

Is this possible? How do I do it?

Answer 1

I found some interesting examples which I do not totally understand, though.

• GitX extends the NSTextFieldCell in their PBIconAndTextCell, referencing this post.
• WWDC 2009 - Session 110 "Presenting User Data with Table Views and Browsers" talks "Adding subviews" and "Custom cell editors". (I do not have the source code, though.)
• Display an NSTextfieldCell containing text and an image within a NSTableView, #70
• Display an NSTextfieldCell containing text and an image within a NSTableView, #71

The last 2 examples work with NSTableViewDataSource and NSTableViewDelegate. I would like to use Bindings an ArrayController in the InterfaceBuilder to connect other UI elements like text fields.

• I stumbled into another discussion where Abizern points out PXListView by Alex Rozanski which looks very promising!

• I am trying to implement a solution for the problem myself. Please find my project on github and the latest rendering problems over here.

Answer 2

Some answers in this thread have gone off topic because they're talking about Cocoa Touch, when the original question was about Cocoa - the 2 APIs are quite different in this regard and Cocoa Touch makes it easy because UITableViewCell is a view subclass. NSCell isn't, and that's the problem

For information, I had to do something very similar in NSOutlineView recently - which is basically the same, but a little harder if anything because you have to deal with disclosure / collapse of levels. If you're interested in the code, I posted about it here: http://www.stevestreeting.com/2010/08/08/cocoa-tip-using-custom-table-outline-cells-designed-in-ib/

HTH

Answer 3

I want to provide a more modern approach here.

Starting with iOS 5, UITableView has a method

(void)registerNib:(UINib *)nib forCellReuseIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier

Once you registered your NIB containing your cell, just use

- (id)dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier

to get a new cell. If a cell is available for reuse, it will be returned, otherwise a new cell is automatically created, and in that case this means loaded from the NIB file.

Answer 4

Add your UITableViewCell to your tableviewcontroller and declare an IBOutlet property:

@interface KuguTableViewController : UITableViewController {
    IBOutlet UITableViewCell *customTypeCell;
}

@property (readonly)  UITableViewCell *customTypeCell;

... then in cellForRowAtIndexPath you can just use your cell and set it to be reused:

static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"CustomCell"
cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil)
        cell = customTypeCell;
        cell.reuseIdentifier = CellIdentifier;