Is it possible to design NSCell subclasses in Interface Builder?

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

Answer 1

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 2

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;

Answer 3

I do it like this:

/* example of a silly way to load a UITableViewCell from a standalone nib */

+ (CEntryTableViewCell *)cell
{
// TODO -- this is really silly.
NSArray *theObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"EntryTableViewCell" owner:self options:NULL];
for (id theObject in theObjects)
    if ([theObject isKindOfClass:self])
        return(theObject);
NSAssert(NO, @"Could not find object of class CEntryTableViewCell in nib");
return(NULL);
}

However it isn't very efficient and if you're loading lot of data it might hurt you. Of course you should be using a reuseIdentifier which should force this code to only run a handful of times per table.

Answer 4

1) Create NSViewController TableViewCell.h

2) Create in TableViewCell.h some procedures like

-(void)setText:(NSString *)text image:(NSImage *)image

3) In Main class #import "TableViewCell.h"

4) In Main class in -(NSView *)tableView:viewForTableColumn:row: write:

NSImage *img = //some image
TableViewCell *cell = [[TableViewCell alloc] initWithWindowNibName:@"TableViewCell"];
cell.view.init;
[cell setText:@"some text" image:img];
return cell;

Hope this will help =)