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AGScopeBar is a modern implementation of a "scope bar" in OS X UI terms. A scope bar is composed of one or more groups of items, where each item is a button or popup menu. The buttons within a group can be momentary "normal" push buttons, or have a selection mode with zero or more selected, one or more selected, or always only one. The right side of the scope bar can also have an accessory view.
MGScopeBar, a similar project by Matt Gemmell, has been around for years, but a number of things bugged me about it so wrote this. The feature set isn't massively different, but there are enough small changes and a much cleaner API.
Among the small differences I wanted from MGScopeBar which are noted in the screenshot below:
- Buttons icons use the new inset look versus being flat gray.
- Button titles also use the inset look versus being flat black.
- When a group collapses into a single popup due to space constraints, it doesn't have a big selected background, and fits to the title width.
- AGScopeBar allows the selection mode where one or more items can be selected, while MGScopeBar does not.
Furthermore, the AGScopeBar API is much sleeker, while being richer. The entirety of MGScopeBar's configuration is done through delegate methods which I find overly verbose, and in my experience thanks to reloadData reloading everything it got me into a very noticeable performance problem that was a nuisance to work around. (Long story). AGScopeBar doesn't have a "reload" metaphor — you simply modify the one thing you want to change directly.
Which would you rather write?
There are three classes in this project: AGScopeBar is a custom NSView which contains a collection of AGScopeBarGroups. Each group contains a collection of AGScopeBarItems which are the buttons and popups in the bar. Properties on all three classes allow you to tweak appearance, selection behavior, behavior during resizing,
Button selection (clicks and on/off) are funelled through the single delegate method:
- (void)scopeBar:(AGScopeBar *)theScopeBar item:(AGScopeBarItem *)item wasSelected:(BOOL)selected;
See the AGScopeBar header for everything.
- OS X 10.6
- Runs in 32 or 64 bit.
Code-level attribution should be maintained, but no credit visible to the end-user is necessary.
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Seth Willits http://www.araelium.com/