Getting NSArrayController item for right click in NSCollectionView

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to create a file explorer using nscollectionview and am currently implementing a right click menu for each item (i.e. copy/delete/rename/etc). I currently have:

• An NSCollectionView linked with an NSArrayController which holds a custom object
• A subclass of NSBox as the view for each item, this also tracks mouse events and passes them to the controller
• The controller has an NSMenu outlet (rcMenu) and also an NSView outlet (itemView) for the NSBox subclass that should be where the menu popup

• The code for calling the menu is:

  [NSMenu popUpContextMenu:rcMenu withEvent:event forView:itemView];

Once run, this works in that the menu pops up when right clicking the item in the collection view, but on inspecting the event that's passed to the controller, there's not really anything I could use to find out which item was right clicked other than the x,y coordinates (which seem to be for the NSWindow rather than the item or NSCollectionView). What I really want is the object in the NSArrayController that had it's view right clicked.

Is this down to me setting it up incorrectly, is there an easy way to figure it out, or is it just that tough to work it out?

Answer 1

You might try setting the menu of each collection view item's view. Most likely, you'll do this by overriding +defaultMenu in your item view class. Once you do that, comment out the popUpContextMenu:withEvent:forView: message and see whether you can get away without it.

Furthermore, it would then not be too hard to serve up different menus for different kinds of items (e.g., folders vs. packages vs. files, and different types of files at that). You'd probably have to override -menuForEvent: instead of +defaultMenu.

Answer 2

Follow Up Question:

Would someone show the actual code and where it is located to delete the Collection View Item (which it seems like is being done via the representedObject). I understand overriding the menuForEvent, but what would the method look like for when the "Delete" menu is clicked, or the "Edit" menu is clicked?