What

A handy NSView category for disabling & enabling UI elements in Cocoa apps.

Questions and comments are welcome - http://twitter.com/ardalahmet or ardalahmet(at)gmail.com

How

Install

Simply add NSView+DisableSubviews.h and NSView+DisableSubviews.m files to your Xcode project and import NSView+DisableSubviews.h header file wherever you want to call one of the disableSubviews: methods.

#import "NSView+DisableSubviews.h"

Use

Disable all subviews in an NSWindow:

[self.window.contentView disableSubviews:YES];

Disable all NSTextFields in an NSWindow:

[self.window.contentView disableSubviews:YES
                                  ofType:[NSTextField class]];

Disable all empty NSTextFields in an NSWindow:

[self.window.contentView disableSubviews:YES
                                  filter:^BOOL (NSView *v) {
                                      return [v isKindOfClass:[NSTextField class]] &&
                                             (((NSTextField *) v).stringValue.length < 1);
                                  }];

Disable views in a specified tag range in an NSWindow:

[self.window.contentView disableSubviews:YES
                                startTag:3
                                  endTag:7];

Disable views with specified tags in an NSWindow:

[self.window.contentView disableSubviews:YES
                                withTags:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                                          [NSNumber numberWithInt:2],
                                          [NSNumber numberWithInt:5],
                                          [NSNumber numberWithInt:8], nil]];

You can group certain UI elements using NSBoxes or NSViews and call disableSubviews: methods on them to obtain more flexibility, if you need.

Xcode project includes a simple Mac app with some nice examples on what you can do with disableSubviews: methods.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").
See LICENSE.txt or visit http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 for more information.

Screenshot

Demo app: