MiscClipTextFieldCell.rtf

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MiscClipTextFieldCell

Inherits From: TextFieldCell : ActionCell : Cell : Object

Declared In: MiscClipTextFieldCell.h

Class Description

MiscClipTextFieldCell objects can be used in controls to display long string values that normally would be truncated because of short of space. Using MiscClipTextFieldCell you can easily implement a text field similar to what Workspace uses to display long pathnames in the "Attributes Inspector" (check out MiscPathName or MiscClipTextField which actually do this).

MiscClipTextFieldCells can be configured several ways. You can specify whether clipping should happen on the left or the right of the string value (setClipOnRight:), what string to use to substitude clipped (non-visible) part of the string (setClipperString :) and you can specify characters (delimiters) only by which clipping can happen (setClipDelimiters:). For example, when you want to display long pathnames you can set MiscClipTextFieldCells to clip on the left, use three dots ("...") as clipper string and to allow clipping to happen only by the slash ('/') characters.

NOTE: This was not meant to be a "Your code/interface/palette/documentation should look like this" kind of project. I only made it because I needed this "clipping" feature in a little project of mine - and anyway I'm not a professional NS guru (yet). This class was mostly inspired by Don Yacktman's `MiscClipTextField' class (MiscKit 1.5.0. "Temp" area). Some other code was lifted from Mike Ferris's `MORegexPalette'.

Known Bugs

I know of one bug but I don't know why it happens. When MiscClipTextFieldCells are used in Matrix and a Button's action message is set to resetStringValue: it will crash (or at least mess up) IB or your application. If you use a TextField instead of the button it doesn't do any harm. Check out Mess.nib in the source folder under Test. [Ed. Note: I couldn't recreate this on my 3.3 machine. -don]

Anyway it dosen't seem to have dangerous bugs in it, and should work as advertised :-)

Instance Variables

id delegate;
id fullString;
id clipper;
id delimiters;
BOOL clipOnRight;
BOOL clipEnabled;

delegate The object that receives notification messages.

fullString The non-clipped string value.

clipper Substitutes for non-visible portion of the cell's string value.

delimiters A string of characters by which clipping can occur.

clipOnRight True if clipping happens on the right.

clipEnabled True if clipping is enabled.

Method Types

Initializing a new MiscClipFieldCell
- init
- initTextCell:

Copying a MiscClipTextFieldCell - copyFromZone:

Setting the MiscClipTextFieldCell's value
- setStringValue:

Setting clipping attributes
- resetStringValue:
- setClipDelimiters:
- setClipEnabled:
- setClipOnRight:
- setClipperString:

Querying MiscClipTextFieldCell attributes
- clipper
- delegate
- delimiters
- doesClipOnRight
- fullStringValue
- isClipEnabled
- isWrapped

Assigning a delegate - setDelegate:
- delegate

Archiving - read:
- write:

Instance Methods

clipper

- clipper

Returns a MiscString object that stores the string which is used to substitute non-visible parts of the reciever's string value.