Show NSPopover using the NSToolbarItem button

Question

I want to show NSPopover using the NSToolbarItem button on my toolbar.
(i.e. located below the button).

Ideally, I want to pass the NSView button to the button to place it. My question is: how do I get the NSView NSToolbarItem ?

[toolbarbutton view] always returns nil.

Answer 1

The answer seems to be in the video for the 2011 WWDC session 113, “Full Screen and Aqua Changes.” Basically, put the NSButton inside the NSToolbaritem and use a representation of this.

The blog post is here: http://www.yellowfield.co.uk/blog/?p=33 , and an example project is on github at http://github.com/tevendale/ToolbarPopover

Everything at sprit http://xkcd.com/979 !

Answer 2

You can send the action directly from the NSButton enclosed in NSToolbarItem (this is what you usually should do anyway, consider segmented controls where each segment has its own target / action) and this will do the trick.

Answer 3

Instead of receiving a view from the IBAction sender, connect the IBOutlet directly to the toolbar item and use this to get a relative view:

In your header file:

 @property (weak) IBOutlet NSToolbarItem *theToolbarItem; @property (weak) IBOutlet NSPopover *thePopover; 

In your implementation file, to show popover:

 [self.thePopover showRelativeToRect:[[self.theToolbarItem view] bounds] ofView:[self.theToolbarItem view] preferredEdge:NSMinYEdge]; 

This will also work to display pop-ups from menu items in a toolbar item.

Answer 4

While I made sure Popover was shown using the approach mentioned by Stuart Tevendale, I was having problems when I tried to check (enable / disable) NSToolbarItems with NSToolbarDelegate :

 -(BOOL)validateToolbarItem:(NSToolbarItem *)toolbarItem { BOOL enable = YES; NSString *identifier = [toolbarItem itemIdentifier]; // This does never get called because I am using a button inside a custom `NSToolbarItem` if ([identifier isEqualToString:@"Popover"]) { return [self someValidationMechanism]; } // For this the validation works when I am using a standard `NSToolbarItem` else if ([identifier isEqualToString:@"StandardToolbarItem"]){ return [self someOtherValidationMechanism]; } return enable; } 

Therefore, I would advise against showing Popover from NSToolbarItem . An alternative could be a page view: How to show NSPanel as a sheet