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

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NSApplicationDelegate openURLs never called
Hi, I have an existing AppKit-based Mac app that I have been working on for a few years. For a new feature, I wanted to have the app opened by a different app, so I setup the URL scheme under CFBundleURLTypes in my Info.plist, and adopted this delegate callback:   - (void)application: (NSApplication *)application openURLs:(nonnull NSArray<NSURL *> *)urls Now when I invoke the URL from the 2nd app, it opens my app correctly, BUT this delegate method isn't called. What's interesting is that if I make a totally new app with a URL scheme and adopt this delegate method, it gets called without a problem! SO what about my original project could be responsible for this 'opensURLs' method to not be called? I've been searching for a solution for a couple of days without any luck. The macOS app's target has a Deployment Target of 10.15 and I'm running this on macOS12.0 with Xcode 13.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
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788
Feb ’25
Small Size Icons and NSToolbar on MacOS 12.0 Monterey -- can it work?
I noticing that Monterey defaults to the NSWindowToolbarStyleAutomatic / NSWindowToolbarStyleUnified toolbar style, which suppresses the "use Small Size" menu item and customization checkbox. So I've set the window to use NSWindowToolbarStyleExpanded. However, the toolbar will no longer change to a smaller icon size, as it did in MacOS 10.14, 10.15, and 11.0. I've tried to set the toolbar item sizing to "Automatic" for all of our toolbar icons, but that results in bad positioning in both Regular and Small Size mode -- the height is way too big. The native size of the icon .png files are 128 x 128. What's odd is that if I resize the window with the toolbar to be wider, the NSToolbarItems in the overflow area will be displayed in the toolbar are 128 x 128, where the rest of the toolbar icons get displayed as a 32 x 32 icon. The only way to get it to layout remotely correct is to make the NSToolbarItem to have an explicit minimum size of 24 x 24 and maximum size of 32 x 32. And that USED to allow "small size", but on Monterey, it no longer does. Anyone had any success with small size icons on Monterey?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
1
2
1.2k
Sep ’25
Menu Bar Icon NOT Showing Up
Hi, I'm trying to make a weather menu bar app, and I want to have it so that the icon of the app in the menu changes with the actual weather, but the icon isn't showing up. There is still a space in the menu bar where I can click and open the app, it's just that the icon has disappeared. Any ideas to fix it?
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598
Apr ’25
[NSRulerView] Is it buggy in Monterey?
I have a NSRulerView with a vertical orientation. It works fine from macOS 10.13 to 11.x. In macOS Monterey (12.2.1 here), the ruler view is not receiving drawHashMarksAndLabelsInRect: messages when the associated NSTextView is scrolled vertically. When the parent NSScrollView is resized, the ruler view is correctly refreshed on all macOS versions. [Q] Is it a known bug in macOS Monterey?
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812
Mar ’25
NSScrollView two finger drag being interrupted
I have a fairly robust MacOS application that has an NSScrollView that contains a canvas with various subviews (including web views and text views that contain scroll views), and a couple of peer views that track items in the scroll view (eg: screen space controls). Some of these views interrupt two finger scrolling. Every scroll view, and one of the peer views (essentially a stack view with buttons in it). I have written an additional bare bones application which does roughly the same thing, and my bare bones application works perfectly: Start two-finger dragging, scroll any of these other things under the cursor, I can continue to drag (and start dragging in any of those, and they drag without interfering with the parent scroll view). I have tried everything to recreate the interruption, including drag gestures attached to these various ancillary views, and I cannot figure out why dragging some of these views under the cursor interrupts two finger drag in our application, but not in my testbed. Does anyone have suggestions for how to debug this? I can see that there is a gesture recognizer in the NSScrollView hierarchy, but I don't see it in any of my gesture recognizer handling. I have breakpoints on every variation of hit testing and mouse motion, and none of them are getting hit in unexpected ways. I'm at my wit's end. Thanks.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
3
1
647
Nov ’25
NSMutableAttributedString and NSTextTable
I'm using NSTextTable to format panels of stand-out text within body text. Paragraphs within the panel are handled as individual NSTextTableBlocks within the table. Each block is added to the NSMutableParagraphStyle that is part of the attributed string within the block's attributes. That's all fine and it works. But... Occasionally I see undrawn lines within the panel. These disappear (or sometimes appear) when the parent window (and thus the NSTextView holding the rendered attributed string) is resized. Lines do not always appear, and when they do they are not always in the same place. The height of the gap varies. I see this behaviour with these panels and with tables. What's common to both cases is not only the use of NSTextTable and NSTextTableBlock etc., but crucially (I think) the use of block margins. If I disable margins (which looks OK for the panels, but isn't right for tables), the problem disappears. So, a bug or (more likely) I'm missing a key part of view rendering or margin set up. But what? Code here: https://github.com/smittytone/PreviewMarkdown/blob/930f5f32aa0b3b77ec3f4f53436a79e10bb26f18/Markdown%20Previewer/Styler.swift#L882 Running 14.6.1 on an M3. I'm using TextKit 1 because I'm using an NSLayoutManager subclass to override certain text underlines (not used in panels as outlined above, or tables).
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
3
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389
Sep ’25
[macOS Sequoia] Using RegisterEventHotkey with option and shift modifiers doesn't working anymore
Hello. In my app, I use RegisterEventHotkey to implement global keyboard shortcuts to trigger actions. Up until macOS Sequoia, I was able to use a keyboard shortcut with option and shift as the modifiers, like option shift 2 (⌥ ⇧ 2). Now, on macOS Sequoia, using RegisterEventHotkey to register a hotkey with those exact modifiers (option and shift), regardless of the key, fails with the error -9868 (eventInternalErr). Is this a documented and wanted change, or is this a bug? Other modifier keys (just command, command option, command shift, command control, control shift, etc), all work. Any insight into this would be appreciated. (Feedback filed: FB15163561) Thank you, Matthias
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13k
3w
ViewBridge to RemoteViewService Terminated (...)
After updating to Sonoma, the following is logged in the Xcode console when an editable text field becomes key. This doesn't occur on any text field, but it seems to happen when the text field is within an NSPopover or an NSSavePanel. ViewBridge to RemoteViewService Terminated: Error Domain=com.apple.ViewBridge Code=18 "(null)" UserInfo={com.apple.ViewBridge.error.hint=this process disconnected remote view controller -- benign unless unexpected, com.apple.ViewBridge.error.description=NSViewBridgeErrorCanceled} What does this mean?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
10
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3.3k
Mar ’25
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.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
1
1
639
Mar ’25
Complex functions are not available
When I generate a dial through code, it prompts the following content: code: CLKWatchFaceLibrary * lib = [[CLKWatchFaceLibrary alloc] init]; [lib addWatchFaceAtURL:url completionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { }]; result: Complex functions are not available How to fix it? Make it usable, Thank you~
1
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918
Dec ’24
NSOutlineView with Diffable Data Source
Hi, On macOS, there seems to be a NSTableViewDiffableDataSource and an NSCollectionViewDiffableDataSource, but there seems to be nothing for NSOutlineView. Is it possible to somehow use NSTableViewDiffableDataSource with NSOutlineView that I'm missing? If not, is it possible to use NSTableView with NSTableViewDiffableDataSource to show a 'table' with section headers?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
5
0
670
Dec ’24
*** -colorSpaceName not valid
Here is a relatively simple code fragment: let attributedQuote: [NSAttributedString.Key: Any] = [ .font: FieldFont!, .foregroundColor: NSColor.red] let strQuote = NSAttributedString.init(string:"Hello World", attributes:attributedQuote) strQuote.draw(in: Rect1) It compiles without an issue, bur when I execute it, I get: "*** -colorSpaceName not valid for the NSColor <NSColor: 0x6000005adfd0>; need to first convert colorspace." I have tried everything I can think of. What's going on?
0
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387
Jan ’25
NSTextField Delegates Not Triggering After Refactoring NSView to NSViewController in macOS App
I'm developing a macOS application and facing an issue with NSTextField delegates after refactoring my code. Here's the situation: I have an NSWindowController. Inside the NSWindowController, there's a container NSView named containerView. On top of containerView, I added a custom NSView subclass named MyDetailsView. MyDetailsView has two NSTextField instances, and their delegates are properly set. The delegate methods like controlTextDidChange(_:) were getting called as expected. Due to some additional requirements, I refactored MyDetailsView into MyDetailsViewController, a subclass of NSViewController. I created a corresponding .xib file for MyDetailsViewController. Updated the code to load and add MyDetailsViewController's view (view property) to containerView. Verified that the NSTextField delegates are still being set, and the fields are displayed correctly in the UI. However, after this refactor, the NSTextField delegate methods (e.g., controlTextDidChange(_:)) are no longer being triggered. **What I've Tried: ** Verified that the delegates for the NSTextField instances are correctly set after the refactor. Ensured that the MyDetailsViewController's view is added to containerView. Question: What could be causing the NSTextField delegate methods to stop working after refactoring from NSView to NSViewController? @IBOutlet weak var customeView: NSView! var myDetailsViewController: MyDetailsViewController! var myDetailsView: MyDetailsView! var isViewController: Bool = true override func windowDidLoad() { super.windowDidLoad() if isViewController { myDetailsViewController = MyDetailsViewController(nibName: "MyDetailsViewController", bundle: nil) self.customeView.addSubview(myDetailsViewController.view) } else { myDetailsView = MyDetailsView.createFromNib() self.customeView.addSubview(myDetailsView!) } } override func showWindow(_ sender: Any?) { super.showWindow(nil) window?.makeKeyAndOrderFront(nil) } override var windowNibName: NSNib.Name? { return NSNib.Name("MyWindowController") }} class MyDetailsViewController: NSViewController { @IBOutlet weak var textField: NSTextField! override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() // Do view setup here. } } extension MyDetailsViewController: NSTextDelegate { func controlTextDidChange(_ obj: Notification) { guard let textField = obj.object as? NSTextField else { return } print("The value is ----> (MyDetailsViewController) \(textField.stringValue)") } } TextField delegate is set in XIB.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit Tags:
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394
Dec ’24
Whats the Appkit equivalent of SwiftUI's NavigationSplitView?
How do I implement the same Navigation split view with a side bar in Appkit? Basically I have this code: import SwiftUI struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { NavigationSplitView { // Sidebar List { NavigationLink("Item 1", value: "Item 1 Details") NavigationLink("Item 2", value: "Item 2 Details") NavigationLink("Item 3", value: "Item 3 Details") } .navigationTitle("Items") } content: { // Main content (detail view for selected item) Text("Select an item to see details.") .padding() } detail: { // Detail view (for the selected item) Text("Select an item from the sidebar to view details.") .padding() } } } struct MyApp: App { var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { ContentView() } } } and wanted to somehow convert it to Appkit. I tried to use an NSSplitViewController but I still don't have that side bar and that button to collapse it, how do I go about this?
2
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661
Dec ’24
Crash on Intel during UI layout
We've got a hard to repro issue on Intel only when performing UI layout. It seems the collection view code gets into a recursive loop of doom and eventually the app crashes. This is only happening on Intel, the ARM version is fine. It seems related to this issue: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/732580 There an Apple Dev acknowledges that there are issues with the Intel version of the OS. Here's the simplified stack we're seeing: -[NSISEngine _coreReplaceMarker:withMarkerPlusDelta:]" -[NSISEngine constraintDidChangeSuchThatMarker:shouldBeReplacedByMarkerPlusDelta:]", -[NSISEngine tryToChangeConstraintSuchThatMarker:isReplacedByMarkerPlusDelta:undoHandler:]", -[NSLayoutConstraint _tryToChangeContainerGeometryWithUndoHandler:]", -[NSLayoutConstraint _setSymbolicConstant:constant:symbolicConstantMultiplier:]", -[NSLayoutConstraint setConstant:]", -[NSView(NSConstraintBasedLayoutInternal) _updateSimpleAutoresizingConstraintsInPlace:forAutoresizingMask:]", NSViewUpdateConstraintsForFrameChange -[NSView setFrameSize:]", -[NSView setFrame:]", -[NSClipView _updateOverhangSubviewsIfNeeded]", -[NSClipView _reflectDocumentViewFrameChange]", -[NSView _postFrameChangeNotification]"," -[NSView setFrameSize:]", -[NSCollectionView setFrameSize:]", -[NSView setFrame:]", NSViewActuallyUpdateFrameFromLayoutEngine", -[NSView resizeSubviewsWithOldSize:]", -[NSView setFrameSize:]", -[NSClipView setFrameSize:]", -[NSView setFrame:]", -[NSScrollView _setContentViewFrame:]", -[NSScrollView tile]", -[NSScrollView _tileWithoutRecursing]", -[NSScrollView reflectScrolledClipView:]", -[NSClipView _reflectDocumentViewFrameChange]_block_invoke", -[NSClipView _reflectDocumentViewFrameChange]", -[NSView _postFrameChangeNotification]", -[NSView setFrameSize:]", -[NSCollectionView setFrameSize:]", -[NSView setFrame:]", -[NSCollectionView _resizeToFitContentAndClipView]", -[_NSCollectionViewCore setContentSize:]", -[_NSCollectionViewCore _updateVisibleCellsNow:]" -[_NSCollectionViewCore _updateVisibleCellsNow:]" -[_NSCollectionViewCore _updateVisibleCellsNow:]" -[_NSCollectionViewCore _updateVisibleCellsNow:]" . . It seems to be limited to macOS 13.1 too. Hoping someone might have a clue? Thanks, Robert. Here's a link to the full stack: https://www.icloud.com/notes/076h1RXj4rvv7TzS5ICnvG6vw#NSCollectionView_crash_stack:
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
0
0
363
Dec ’24
Full Screen Tile: Left of Screen
I want to use Objective C language to implement a button, click the button to achieve the function of Menu Bar - Full Screen Tile - Left of Screen. What should I do? I couldn't find the relevant API.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
0
0
366
Dec ’24
"Add-on" services no longer supported?
Our MacOS app has for some time been able to create so-called "add-on" services, which are dynamically written to individual bundles in ~/Library/Services/ (as opposed to being statically defined in the app's Info.plist). These worked fine for a long time until recently. They still appear in other app Services menus, but do not get as far as calling the specified instance method in our app. Does anyone know if add-on services are no longer supported? Perhaps due to some new security constraint? The documentation on app services in general seems to be out of date. I did try copying the add-on service definition from the add-on plist into the app's Info.plist. That seemed to work, so the basic specification doesn't seem to have changed.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
0
0
272
Jan ’25
Cannot mimic fullscreen behavior when using custom event loop
Hi, we are developing a cross-platform library for creating desktop applications in C++: https://github.com/aseprite/laf For this reason, in macOS, we cannot rely on the default NSApplication.run() event loop, so we decided to implement our custom event loop using the nextEventMatchingMask method. Then, when a window is in fullscreen mode, for some reason the window stops receiving mouseMove events when the mouse pointer enters an area at the top of the window. You can see this issue in action by trying the following example project: https://github.com/martincapello/custom-event-loop-issue This project just opens one window and uses a custom event loop, it displays the current mouse position at every mouseMove event received, and when the aforementioned area is entered it suddenly stops updating. There is also a video showing how to reproduce it. I was able to see that when the position stops updating, we still receive mouseMove events, but for a different window, a borderless window that is added to the NSApplication.windows collection when switching to fullscreen, and which seems to be taken the mouseMove events before reaching the main window. Also, this issue doesn't happen when using the default NSApplication.run method, despite the borderless windows being added as well.
8
0
634
Jan ’25