How do you add context senstive menu to NSOutlineView (ie right click menu)

Jay picture Jay · Aug 21, 2009 · Viewed 7.2k times · Source

How do you add the ability to right click on a row in an NSOutlineView so you can say delete an object or some other activity. (ie Like when you right click on a folder in the Apple Mail app)

I think I am half way there, I have a subclass of NSOutlineView that allows me to catch the right click and display a context menu based on the selected row rather than the row the mouse is clicking on.

@implementation NSContextOutlineView

    - (NSMenu *)defaultMenu {
        if([self selectedRow] < 0) return nil;
        NSMenu *theMenu = [[[NSMenu alloc] initWithTitle:@"Model browser context menu"] autorelease];
        [theMenu insertItemWithTitle:@"Add package" action:@selector(addSite:) keyEquivalent:@"" atIndex:0];
        NSString* deleteItem = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"Remove '%i'", [self selectedRow]];
        [theMenu insertItemWithTitle: deleteItem action:@selector(removeSite:) keyEquivalent:@"" atIndex:1];
        return theMenu;
    }

    - (NSMenu *)menuForEvent:(NSEvent *)theEvent {
        return [self defaultMenu];  
    }
@end

Sorry if the answer is obvious I just cant find any help on this online or in the documentation.

Thanks to Void for the answer, it lead me to using this:

- (NSMenu *)menuForEvent:(NSEvent *)theEvent {
    NSPoint pt = [self convertPoint:[theEvent locationInWindow] fromView:nil];
    id item = [self itemAtRow: [self rowAtPoint:pt]];
    return [self defaultMenuFor: item];
}

Answer

VoidPointer picture VoidPointer · Aug 21, 2009

In your menuForEvent method you can find out which row the click occurred on. You can pass that as a parameter to your defaultMenu method -- maybe call it defaultMenuForRow:

-(NSMenu*)menuForEvent:(NSEvent*)evt 
{
    NSPoint pt = [self convertPoint:[evt locationInWindow] fromView:nil];
    int row=[self rowAtPoint:pt];
    return [self defaultMenuForRow:row];
}

Now you can build the menu for the row you found in the event...

-(NSMenu*)defaultMenuForRow:(int)row
{
    if (row < 0) return nil;

    NSMenu *theMenu = [[[NSMenu alloc] 
                                initWithTitle:@"Model browser context menu"] 
                                autorelease];
    [theMenu insertItemWithTitle:@"Add package" 
                          action:@selector(addSite:) 
                   keyEquivalent:@"" 
                         atIndex:0];
    [theMenu insertItemWithTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Remove '%i'", row] 
                          action:@selector(removeSite:) 
                   keyEquivalent:@"" 
                         atIndex:0];
    // you'll need to find a way of getting the information about the 
    // row that is to be removed to the removeSite method
    // assuming that an ivar 'contextRow' is used for this
    contextRow = row;

    return theMenu;        
}

Also, as already mentioned in the comments, you really shouldn't use the NS-prefix on your own classes. There is a potential for a clash in the future plus it will confuse everybody that is looking at your code - including yourself :)

Hope this helps...