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Introduction to Search Fields

Contents:

Organization of This Document
See Also

A search field provides a standard user interface for searching and is a feature in applications like Mail, Safari, and Address Book.

You use the Cocoa classes NSSearchFieldCell and NSSearchField to implement search fields. Other than sending the action message, however, NSSearchFieldCell and NSSearchField provide no direct support for textual searches.

Organization of This Document

This programming topic contains the following articles:

• “Understanding Search Fields” describes the features of search fields and the classes used to implement them.

• “Adding a Search Field to Your Application” describes how to add a search field to your application, using either Interface Builder or a programming language.

• “Configuring a Search Menu” describes setting up the search field’s pop-up icon menu to show recent search strings and search categories.

• “Implementing the Target” describes how to implement the search field’s target’s action method.

• “Customizing Your Search Field’s Appearance” describes how to change the appearance of a search field programatically.

See Also

• Apple Human Interface Guidelines provides guidelines on when to use particular interface items and how to position them.

• Search Kit Reference describes a powerful and streamlined C language framework for indexing and searching text in most human languages.

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