Construct and manage a graphical, event-driven user interface for your macOS app using AppKit.

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New crashes with NSOutlineView in MacOS Sequoia
Hi, I have noticed a major uptick in crash reports, ever since I updated my app for macOS Sequoia. All of them have to do with NSOutlineView, and they all have a similar internal API in the crash log, which shows that the issue is something to do with the framework. They all have references to NSConcreteMapTable and _TtCs12_SwiftObject isEqual. The issue isn't reproducible, but it's reported by many different users, all on macOS15+, and it was never an issue with macOS14 or below, so I'm not sure what to do about it. Here's a couple of examples of the new crash reports: Date/Time: 2024-10-29T06:55:19.999Z Launch Time: 2024-10-29T06:50:08Z OS Version: Mac OS X 15.0.1 (24A348) Report Version: 104 Exception Type: SIGTRAP Exception Codes: TRAP_BRKPT at 0x1a98c9c90 Crashed Thread: 0 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libswiftCore.dylib 0x00000001a98c9c90 -[_TtCs12_SwiftObject isEqual:] + 240 1 Foundation 0x0000000199ad4e0c probeGC + 408 2 Foundation 0x0000000199b01e6c -[NSConcreteMapTable removeObjectForKey:] + 76 3 AppKit 0x000000019c5966a8 _NSOVFreeRowEntry + 44 4 AppKit 0x000000019c5965c4 _NSOVRecursiveFreeChildrenAndItem + 100 5 AppKit 0x000000019c59649c _NSOVFastRemoveChildRowEntries + 260 6 AppKit 0x000000019c595d40 -[NSOutlineView reloadItem:reloadChildren:] + 1016 7 MyApp 0x0000000104b454fc CJ_CRM.MacCJSidebarViewController.compareContactsDictionariesForPublicGroups() -> () (MacCJSidebarViewController.swift:1611) 8 MyApp 0x0000000104b44518 $s20MyApp26MacCJSidebarViewControllerC27contactsChangedNotificationyySo14NSNotificationCFySo7NSTimerCYbcfU_ (MacCJSidebarViewController.swift:461) 9 MyApp 0x0000000104ba5310 $sSo7NSTimerCIeghg_ABIeyBhy_TR (<compiler-generated>:0) 10 Foundation 0x0000000199b64cfc __NSFireTimer + 100 11 CoreFoundation 0x0000000198988184 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_TIMER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 28 12 CoreFoundation 0x0000000198987e28 __CFRunLoopDoTimer + 1008 13 CoreFoundation 0x0000000198987938 __CFRunLoopDoTimers + 352 14 CoreFoundation 0x000000019896d0f0 __CFRunLoopRun + 1852 15 CoreFoundation 0x000000019896c334 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 568 16 HIToolbox 0x00000001a3da50cc RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 288 17 HIToolbox 0x00000001a3daaebc ReceiveNextEventCommon + 632 18 HIToolbox 0x00000001a3dab020 _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 72 19 AppKit 0x000000019c4b0a70 _DPSNextEvent + 656 20 AppKit 0x000000019cdd67b8 -[NSApplication(NSEventRouting) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 684 21 AppKit 0x000000019c4a3b7c -[NSApplication run] + 476 22 AppKit 0x000000019c47a44c NSApplicationMain + 884 23 MyApp 0x0000000104a1e26c main (main.m:24) 24 ??? 0x0000000198504274 0x0 + 0 Another one with a different trigger but same internal API: Date/Time: 2024-10-29T16:49:12.999Z Launch Time: 2024-10-29T15:51:27Z OS Version: Mac OS X 15.1 (24B83) Report Version: 104 Exception Type: SIGSEGV Exception Codes: SEGV_MAPERR at 0x4cde11282080 Crashed Thread: 0 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libswiftCore.dylib 0x00000001a04efa1c isSubclass(swift::TargetMetadata<swift::InProcess> const*, swift::TargetMetadata<swift::InProcess> const*) + 28 1 libswiftCore.dylib 0x00000001a04ef9f8 _swift_class_isSubclass + 12 2 libswiftCore.dylib 0x00000001a04ffa9c -[_TtCs12_SwiftObject isEqual:] + 252 3 Foundation 0x00000001906b4cec probeGC + 408 4 Foundation 0x00000001906b4adc -[NSConcreteMapTable objectForKey:] + 64 5 AppKit 0x00000001930f8eec -[NSOutlineView _rowEntryForItem:requiredRowEntryLoadMask:] + 48 6 AppKit 0x00000001930f8e80 -[NSOutlineView parentForItem:] + 24 7 MyApp 0x0000000100e2faec MyApp.MacCJSidebarViewController.outlineView(_: __C.NSOutlineView, selectionIndexesForProposedSelection: Foundation.IndexSet) -> Foundation.IndexSet (MacCJSidebarViewController.swift:759) 8 MyApp 0x0000000100e30dbc @objc MyApp.MacCJSidebarViewController.outlineView(_: __C.NSOutlineView, selectionIndexesForProposedSelection: Foundation.IndexSet) -> Foundation.IndexSet (<compiler-generated>:0) 9 AppKit 0x000000019324c4e4 -[NSTableView _userSelectableRowIndexesForProposedSelection:userCanAlreadyChangeSelection:] + 288 10 AppKit 0x00000001933176c4 -[NSTableView _userSelectRowIndexes:withNewSelectedRow:] + 140 11 AppKit 0x00000001933175a0 -[NSTableView _userSelectSingleRow:] + 76 12 AppKit 0x0000000193315c8c -[NSTableView mouseDown:] + 2536 13 AppKit 0x0000000193315120 -[NSOutlineView mouseDown:] + 72 14 MyApp 0x0000000100dabb38 -[CustomNSOutlineView mouseDown:] (CustomNSOutlineView.m:180) 15 AppKit 0x000000019320d98c forwardMethod + 248 16 AppKit 0x000000019320d98c forwardMethod + 248 17 AppKit 0x0000000193213518 -[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) _handleMouseDownEvent:isDelayedEvent:] + 3668 18 AppKit 0x000000019319f00c -[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) _reallySendEvent:isDelayedEvent:] + 380 19 AppKit 0x000000019319ecbc -[NSWindow(NSEventRouting) sendEvent:] + 280 20 AppKit 0x00000001939b6bf0 -[NSApplication(NSEventRouting) sendEvent:] + 1652 21 AppKit 0x00000001935c489c -[NSApplication _handleEvent:] + 56 22 AppKit 0x000000019306ab08 -[NSApplication run] + 516 23 AppKit 0x0000000193041364 NSApplicationMain + 884 24 MyApp 0x0000000100d0626c main (main.m:24) 25 ??? 0x000000018f0e4274 0x0 + 0 I just created a Feedback FB15625970. Please let me know if this is a known issue, and/or if there's any ideas out there on how I can do to avoid this. It's causing a lot of instability in my app, that wasn't there before macOS15, so something changed in the internal APIs, and hopefully there's a way to work around it.
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Unable to add WeatherKit in Xcode 16
Hello fellow developers, I’m posting this short message because I’m trying to add WeatherKit to my application, but I’m running into a problem. I have correctly declared my application on Apple’s website under Certificates, IDs & Profiles, and I have checked WeatherKit. However in Xcode, I do not have the option to add WeatherKit in Signing & Capabilities. The option doesn’t appear even though I have the Automatically manage signing box checked. What can I do to resolve this issue? Thank you for your response.
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4w
Cocoa: Simultaneous fullscreen toggle & opening of modal dialog fails
Does Cocoa have documentation that describes why this functionality is not supported? To try it out is simple, create a default application that uses Objective C in XCode, add a button that toggles the window into fullscreen and opens a modal save-as dialog at the same time. The fullscreen transition will half-complete but kick the application out of fullscreen instantly. Is this expected behavior? The test application is attached below. The XCode test application
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4w
Since Sequoia, NSSearchField in NSToolbar is not always getting focus when asked to.
My app (Find Any File) behaves strangely on Sequoia: When the code calls the window's makeFirstResponder on the NSSearchField item in the window's toolbar, and if the toolbar is currently showing the small loupe icon, it should: Switch to showing an NSTextView in place of the loupe icon Make the text view the first responder so that the user can type in it. This used to work reliably before macOS 15, but in 15.0.1 and also the current 15.1 beta it often misses step 1 or or step 2. When it misses step 1, then the window's first responder reports back to it's set to the text field, but its frame is very narrow (width is 4 isntead of 192). And when it misses step 2, then the textview is visible but hasn't gained focus - instead, the main window is the first responder. This happening is quite random. I find no pattern. Even worse, after calling makeFirstResponder, if I check the window's first responder, it's always the expected NSTextView, even if I delay the check with dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ …. So I cannot even reliably detect when this goes wrong in order to act on it. Has anyone else noticed this to happen in their apps?
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Sending events to VZVirtualMachineView
I'm trying to send various user input events to a virtual machine. The app is built in SwiftUI, so the VZVirtualMachineView is part of a view controller wrapped in NSViewControllerRepresentable. Non-modified keystrokes and mouse clicks work fine, but I can't send modified keystrokes (e.g., ⌘F). These come through without the modifier (e.g., plain F). I also haven't been able to get mouse scroll wheel events to do anything in the VM. I installed a local event monitor with addLocalMonitorForEvents(matching:handler:). Before the VM boots and the VM view exists, typing myself generates events that I see with the monitor. After the VM boots, though, the monitor does not see any of my keystrokes. The monitor never sees any of my programmatically generated events. I am sending these all through NSWindow.sendEvent(_:). Is there anything special about VZVirtualMachineView that might affect how it handles injected events? It's obvious possible (likely) that I'm doing something wrong with how I build and/or send these events into the application. Can anyone point me to documentation or examples that aren't easily found through search engines?
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Oct ’24
drawing NSView in Sequoia
In genealogy software, I have an NSView that displays a family tree where each person is in a subview. Before Sequoia, the subviews would draw in the order I add them to the parent NSView. For some reason, Sequoia calls drawRect in reverse order. For example, a tree with cells for son, father, and mother used to be drawn in that order, but Sequoia draws them as mother, father, and son. For static cell placement it would not matter, but these trees dynamically adjust as users change data or expand and contract branches from the tree. Drawing them in the wrong order messes up all the logic and many trees are corrupted. Has the new drawing order been implemented for some reason and can it be changed? Is it documented?
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Oct ’24
Possibly Incorrect Statement in AppKit Release Notes for macOS 14.
While trying to debug some weird drawing issues under macOS 14, I remembered that there was a comment in the AppKit Release notes related to drawing and NSView.clipsToBounds. AppKit Release Notes for macOS 14 Under the section titled NSView, the following statement is made: For applications linked against the macOS 14 SDK, the default value of this property is true. Apps linked against older SDKs default to false. Some classes, like NSClipView, continue to default to true. Is this statement possibly backwards? From what I can tell, under macOS 14 NSView.clipsToBounds now defaults to false. I came across this while trying to debug an issue where views that override drawRect with the intent of calling NSFillRect(self.bounds) with a solid color are, sometimes, briefly flickering because self.bounds is NSZeroRect, even though self.frame is not (nor is the dirtyRect). This seems to be happening when views are added as subviews to a parent view. The subviews, which override drawRect, periodically "miss" a repaint and thus flicker. This seems to happen when views are frequently added or removed, like what happens in a scrolling view that is "recycling" views as they go offscreen. Views that scroll into the viewport are added as subviews and, sometimes, briefly flicker. Replacing calls to drawRect with wantsUpdateLayer and updateLayer eliminates the flickering, which makes me think something is going astray in drawRect and the various rects you can use. This is with Xcode 15.4, linking against macOS 14.5 and running on macOS 14.6.1
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Oct ’24
Binding NSPopUpButton to an NSMutableArray
My view controller has this property: @property NSMutableArray *tableCities; Whenever I press a button a new city object is added to this array, it consists of a dictionary of NSStrings containing the name and state of the city being added. Now, I have an NSPopUpButton that I'd like to bind to the city name of all cities in this NSMutableArray, how exactly can I achieve this with the Bindings Inspector?
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Oct ’24
Applying Custom Rounded Corners to a macOS Window
Which method allows me to apply larger-than-default rounded corners to a macOS window while maintaining the system’s dynamic, contrasting border – similar to what’s seen in the Control Center popup? (Control Center has a corner radius of 16, the default system window is 10.) While I know how to closely achieve this effect manually for my plain panel, I'd like to leverage the built-in method and get it for free from the OS. I’ve spent way more time on this problem than I'm willing to admit, and searched extensively, but haven’t found any solution. I’d really appreciate any pointers. Thank you.
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Oct ’24
Wait for some completion in main thread using Catalyst environment
I need to bring an iOS application to macOS using Catalyst. This application contain parts where it waits for a button to be pressed in the main thread, using [[NSRunLoop mainRunLoop] runUntilDate:[NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:0.1]]; in a while loop to allow some dispatching while waiting. I know that this is not good style, but I need to convert this old source code and mentioned that when using this part of code under Catalyst, the main thread will not dispatch. So the button cannot be clicked, and a beach ball appears after two seconds. I saw a similar construct for native macOS applications: NSEvent *event= [[NSApplication sharedApplication] nextEventMatchingMask:NSEventMaskAny untilDate:[NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:0.1] inMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode dequeue:YES]; if (event) { [[NSApplication sharedApplication] sendEvent:event]; } but I do not have access to NSEvent and NSApplication in a Catalyst environment. Question: I there any code snippet which I can use to achieve the above? I do not want to completely rewrite old code if there is a solution for this. Any ideas or hints are highly appreciated. Thank you! Markus
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Sep ’24
could someone or an apple dev help me get data on an tableview in objective c?
I understand the mvc thing kinda, theres an array as a model, a tableview as a control, and the interface as a control (right?) so like, I drag an array controller on to the form display thing, assign a delegate to it the view and app module/header, add data to it and the tableview updates after I add a function to it? in vs the events are in the event browser, do I just copy and paste the code from the tutorial? how do I add controls and do all the advanced stuff? the documentation on developer.apple.com isnt that detailed, and most books are outdated or n/a since its objective c tutorials would be nice, some home grown method would be cool too thank you unidef warrell yashizzo
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Oct ’24
Updating a NSTableView
For a Cocoa project I have this table view controller: @interface TableViewController : NSObject <NSTableViewDataSource, NSTableViewDelegate> @property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray *numbers; @property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray *letters; @end #import "TableViewController.h" @implementation TableViewController - (NSMutableArray *)numbers { if (!_numbers) { _numbers = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray:@[@"1", @"2", @"3", @"4", @"5", @"6", @"7", @"8", @"9", @"10"]]; } return _numbers; } - (NSMutableArray *)letters { if (!_letters) { _letters = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray: @[@"a", @"b", @"c", @"d", @"e", @"f", @"g", @"h", @"i", @"j"]]; } return _letters; } // NSTableViewDataSource Protocol Method - (NSInteger)numberOfRowsInTableView:(NSTableView *)tableView { return self.numbers.count; } // NSTableViewDelegate Protocol Method -(NSView *)tableView:(NSTableView *)tableView viewForTableColumn:(NSTableColumn *)tableColumn row:(NSInteger)row { NSString *identifier = tableColumn.identifier; NSTableCellView *cell = [tableView makeViewWithIdentifier:identifier owner:self]; if ([identifier isEqualToString:@"numbers"]) { cell.textField.stringValue = [self.numbers objectAtIndex:row]; } else { cell.textField.stringValue = [self.letters objectAtIndex:row]; } return cell; } In the storyboard I created a NSTableView and set up the connection, after running it I get what I expected: okay, cool, but I have a question: why is this working even though I haven't created a NSTableView as a property for my ViewController or for my TableViewController? Also, there's another problem, now I want to add a button to this window such that, every time I click it, a new item should be added to this table(for now it can be anything) So I created a button and a method for this and linked the action to the story board: -(IBAction) addNewNumber:(id)sender { [_numbers addObject:@"1234"]; [_letters addObject:@"testing"]; } Now, every time I click this button I can see that this method is indeed being called and that indeed IT IS adding a new member to these arrays, the thing is, the table is not being updated, what gives? Any advice on how I can fix this behavior?
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Oct ’24
Unable to update NSProgressIndicator for the dock Icon
I have created a progress indicator to simulate some progressing download task in the dock icon. However, I can see the progress bar appearing in the dock icon but it is not getting updated when I invoked the updateProgress() method. Ideally it should have updated it, and I m not able to figure out the reason? I have creating the same NSProgressIndicator on an NSWindow and it works to update the progress bar with the same code. Anything that I m missing to understand here? Below is the code I m using: class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate { var progressIndicator: NSProgressIndicator! let dockTile = NSApp.dockTile func applicationWillFinishLaunching(_ notification: Notification) { // Step 1: Create a progress bar (NSProgressIndicator) progressIndicator = NSProgressIndicator(frame: NSRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 100, height: 20)) progressIndicator.isIndeterminate = false progressIndicator.minValue = 0.0 progressIndicator.maxValue = 100.0 progressIndicator.doubleValue = 0.0 progressIndicator.style = .bar dockTile.contentView = progressIndicator dockTile.display() //// Update the progress bar for demonstration DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 1) { self.updateProgress(50) } } func updateProgress(_ value: Double) { progressIndicator.doubleValue = value NSApp.dockTile.display() } }
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222
Oct ’24
NSAlert accessory view
I need to add an accessory view with a text field to an NSAlert. This works as expected but as my app comes in different languages, the alert looks a bit different depending on the language used: So I wonder how I can make the text field automatically use the full width of the alert window. I tried to call the alert's layout method and then resize the text field but this seems not work in all cases. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks!
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206
Oct ’24
NSApplicationDelegate open URLs only called after second drop
I want to make a simple droplet application. I've set the document types to include com.adobe.pdf files, and I am now receiving callbacks to the app delegate's application(_:open:) callback when I drop PDFs on the app icon… But not the first time. It doesn't matter how long I wait, or whether the app is already open—the first drop never triggers the callback. All subequent drops work as expected, and I get URLs to all the files dropped. What might be wrong? How can I debug this?
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Oct ’24
Cocoa application duplicated view
I have a Cocoa application and I'm trying to set up an NSImageView without using story board (using storyboard works just fine tho). Also, I'm kinda new to Cocoa so any advice is appreciated. Anyway so here's the deal, I created a class to encapsulate this image: @interface MyView : NSView { @private NSImageView* imageView; } @end @implementation MyView -(id) initWithFrame:(NSRect)frameRect { self = [super initWithFrame:frameRect]; if(self) { NSRect rect = NSMakeRect(10, 10, 100, 200); imageView = [[NSImageView alloc] initWithFrame:rect]; NSImage* image = [NSImage imageNamed:@"bob.jpeg"]; [imageView setImageScaling:NSImageScaleNone]; [imageView setImage: image]; [self addSubview: imageView]; } return self; } -(id) init { return [self initWithFrame:NSMakeRect(10, 10, 100, 100)]; } - (void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect { [super drawRect:dirtyRect]; // Drawing code here. } @end Now, in the view controller file, in the viewDidLoad I tried to load add this as a subview to get it to display my image: - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; MyView *customView = [[MyView alloc] init]; [self.view addSubview:customView]; } This kinda works, except that it loads the image twice, I ended up with two images instead of just one like I intended, what gives? what am I doing wrong here?
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271
Oct ’24
Setting value of NSSlider resets mouse cursor
Hi, in my macOS app I am modifying the mouse cursor image for some user interactions. I also have an NSSlider in the app which can be changed programmatically by setting its doubleValue. I've noticed that whenever the slider is set programmatically the custom mouse cursor is lost and changes back to an arrow. This doesn't happen if other controls are changed programmatically, e.g. the progress bar. Any ideas on how I can prevent this happening?
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200
Sep ’24