Customizing the Font Conversion System

In Objective-C only, if you need to customize the font conversion system by creating subclasses of NSFontManager or NSFontPanel, you must inform the NSFontManager class of this change with a setFontManagerFactory: or setFontPanelFactory: message, before either the shared font manager or shared Font panel is created. These methods record your class as the one to instantiate the first time the font manager or Font panel is requested. You may be able to avoid using subclasses if all you need is to add some custom controls to the Font panel. In this case, you can invoke the NSFontPanel setAccessoryView: method to add an NSView below its font browser.

In Java, to add some custom controls to the Font panel, invoke NSFontPanel’s setAccessoryView to add an NSView below its font browser.

If you provide your own Font menu, you should register it with the font manager using the setFontMenu method. The font manager is responsible for validating Font menu items and changing their titles and tags according to the font of the selection. For example, when the selected font is Italic, the font manager changes the Italic Font menu item to Unitalic and changes its tag to UnitalicMask. Your Font menu’s items should use the appropriate action methods and tags. Here are some examples: