How to disable user interaction in a custom View

Question

I have a custom View NSView and I want to disable userinteraction, but I'm not sure how to do this.

My idea was:

[myView setEnabled:NO];

but it's wrong and doesn't work. How can I make it so that, it's just visible for the user, and nothing else?

@CodersParadise: this question is about OS X, not iOS. There is no such property or method on `NSView`... — NSGod, Apr 09 '13 at 00:28

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '13 at 14:39

16

NSView doesn't have either setEnabled: or setIgnoresMouseEvents:

Implement the hitTest: method to return nil.

answered Nov 08 '13 at 14:39

Ravindhiran

5,304
9
50
82

I like this solution. Simple to implement and way more robust and reliable than disabling the subviews if they are controls. – DarkDust Feb 18 '15 at 08:18
This did not work for me at all. Implementing mouseDown: that does nothing is the solution in my case. – ghr May 31 '17 at 00:25
1

That would prevent mouse interactions but we'd want to disable any interaction, including via the keyboard (which is possible by enabling keyboard navigation with ctrl-F7, then using the Tab and space keys) – Thomas Tempelmann May 26 '19 at 17:35

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 31 '12 at 13:07

From here:

//
//  NSView-DisableSubsAdditions.m
//  Can Combine Icons
//
//  Created by David Remahl on Tue Dec 25 2001.
//  Copyright (c) 2001 Infinity-to-the-Power-of-Infinity. All rights reserved.
//

#import "NSView-DisableSubsAdditions.h"

@implementation NSView(DisableSubsAdditions)

- (void)disableSubViews
{
    [self setSubViewsEnabled:NO];
}

- (void)enableSubViews
{
    [self setSubViewsEnabled:YES];
}

- (void)setSubViewsEnabled:(BOOL)enabled
{
    NSView* currentView = NULL;
    NSEnumerator* viewEnumerator = [[self subviews] objectEnumerator];

    while( currentView = [viewEnumerator nextObject] )
    {
        if( [currentView respondsToSelector:@selector(setEnabled:)] )
        {
            [(NSControl*)currentView setEnabled:enabled];
        }
        [currentView setSubViewsEnabled:enabled];

        [currentView display];
    }
}

@end

@wcochran That's actually permitted. See here: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/319061/2228559 — aleclarson, Feb 16 '19 at 23:55
Here's another library similar to this answer: https://github.com/ardalahmet/DisableSubviews — aleclarson, Feb 16 '19 at 23:58

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 12 '14 at 09:02

3

subclass the NSView and add following method

-(void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)theEvent
{

}

answered Feb 12 '14 at 09:02

Muruganandham K

5,271
5
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Perfect. hitTest: returning nil does not work for me at all - it seemed to prevent mouseDown being invoked. So just use an empty mouseDown: – ghr May 31 '17 at 00:27
That would prevent mouse interactions but we'd want to disable any interaction, including via the keyboard (which is possible by enabling keyboard navigation with ctrl-F7, then using the Tab and space keys) – Thomas Tempelmann May 26 '19 at 17:35

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 14 '19 at 00:29

2

Here is an example in Swift 4. Place your views into this custom view.

class UserInterectionDisabledView: NSView {
    override func hitTest(_ point: NSPoint) -> NSView? {
        return nil
    }
}

answered Mar 14 '19 at 00:29

Joey

2,912
2
27
32

3

That might prevent mouse interactions but we'd want to disable any interaction, including via the keyboard. – Thomas Tempelmann May 26 '19 at 17:34

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 28 '21 at 08:20

I think overriding hitTest(_:) is not ideal as it can block all interactions behind it.

A better way is to make the view refuse to becomeFirstResponder. So that events can be send to next responder, basically it skips the view.

class SubclassNSView: NSView {

  public var isUserInteractionEnabled: Bool = true

  open override func becomeFirstResponder() -> Bool {
    if isUserInteractionEnabled == false {
      return false
    } else {
      return super.becomeFirstResponder()
    }
  }
}

How to disable user interaction in a custom View

5 Answers5

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