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macoscocoansfilemanagernsoutlineview

How to display a list of files in a Cocoa app?

I am making an OSX Cocoa application in Xcode. I want to have a panel on the left side of the app that displays a clickable list of the files in the given folder and when the user clicks on one that file should open in a NSTextView on the right side of the app. I have figured out how to open, save and write to the files in the given folder, but I am at a loss for how to make a selectable view with file names.

I was thinking about using an OnClicked method for file opening.

Also, I do not want to use the OpenFile drop down panel, I want the files to be shown on the screen.

Solution

  • You should use NSOutlineView to display the list of files. You can populate it by iterating through the filesystem with NSFileManager.

    Then, when the outline view's selection changes, you can read the contents of the file and set the NSTextView's string property.