MacOS menu in Swift

Question

I am looking to create a menu sidebar in my application which can display and control view controllers besides the menu. Something like the following: I would like to avoid a TableView for the menu, but I'm not totally against it. I've tried using a TableView and a Container, and a TabViewController but I can't seem to get either to look like the above.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

https://developer.apple.com/macos/human-interface-guidelines/windows-and-views/sidebars/ — Leo Dabus, Jan 29 '18 at 21:01
What you are looking for is called NSSplitViewController https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nssplitviewcontroller — Leo Dabus, Jan 29 '18 at 21:07
@LeoDabus Thanks very much, got a working NSTabViewController and paired it with the SplitViewController; exactly what I was looking for! — Ckacmaster, Jan 30 '18 at 00:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 30 '18 at 00:41

Inspiration comes from "What you are looking for is called NSSplitViewController"

Code is as follows:

class MenuController: NSViewController {
    override func loadView() {
        super.loadView()
        tabViewController = parent?.childViewControllers[1] as! NSTabViewController! //The parent is the SplitView, so the child in the second view would be the TabViewController
    }
    @IBOutlet weak var FirstButton: NSButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var SecondButton: NSButton!

    var tabViewController = NSTabViewController()

    @IBAction func FirstView(_ sender: Any) {
        tabViewController?.selectedTabViewItemIndex = 0 //Now that the TabViewController is specified, one may set the current view controller within the tabview.
    }

    @IBAction func SecondView(_ sender: Any) {
        tabViewController?.selectedTabViewItemIndex = 1 //Shows the second view in NSTabViewController
    }
}

In the diagram, the NSSplitViewController has two childViewControllers; therefore it is the parent of those controllers and can be accessed via the parent? method in both child view controllers. Once you've specified the tabViewController, you can then set its selectedTabViewItemIndex[value] which switches the view in the NSTabViewController.

MacOS menu in Swift

1 Answers1