Is there any quick and easy to set a NSOutlineView to a certain folder contents?

---

The example project at file:///Developer/Examples/AppKit/OutlineView/ shows how to do this.

---

I (not the original poster), tried this out, but it wouldn’t work for anything other than the startup disk. I couldn’t get it to work with dmgs, external hard drives’s etc…

I looked at the example, very nice. But how would I access the file icon and display in the view? —- I tried this example aswell. Is there any way to make it work with not just your root drive? Thanks

See the comment about making an array of your root items and returning nil on the NSOutlineView page

Also note that all mounted disks show up in /Volumes. So a CD named “Photos 2003” would show up as “/Volumes/Photos 2003/”

The startup volume isn’t in /Volumes. {Yes, it is} And the name of the mount point in /Volumes isn’t necessarily the same as the actual volume name. You shouldn’t rely on it.

---

Feeding the example “/Volumes/” does not list all volumes, it just has the text ‘Volumes’ at the top as a non expandable item. Any ideas as to how to do it?

Works fine like this (to list all volumes) Just change the two DataSource methods to match this:

• (int)outlineView:(NSOutlineView *)outlineView numberOfChildrenOfItem:(id)item { return (item == nil) ? [FileSystemItem numVolumes] : [item numberOfChildren]; }

• (id)outlineView:(NSOutlineView *)outlineView child:(int)index ofItem:(id)item { return (item == nil) ? [FileSystemItem volumeAtIndex:index] : [item childAtIndex:index]; }

Then add these two methods to FileSystemItem:

• (FileSystemItem *)volumeAtIndex:(int)index { if (volumeDir == nil) volumeDir = [[FileSystemItem alloc] initWithPath:@”/Volumes” parent:[FileSystemItem rootItem]];

  return [volumeDir childAtIndex:(index + 1)]; // +1 because of .DS_STORE. This really shouldn’t be hardcoded. }

• (int)numVolumes { if (volumeDir == nil) volumeDir = [[FileSystemItem alloc] initWithPath:@”/Volumes” parent:[FileSystemItem rootItem]];

  NSLog(@”%i”, [volumeDir numberOfChildren]); return [volumeDir numberOfChildren] - 1; // -1 because of .DS_STORE. Ditto }

Probably your problem was that you didn’t set the parent to a real FileSystemItem. The code for FileSystemItem requires that you have all parent objects set (except for /) in order to generate a valid path. If you wanted to make an arbitrary root, do it like this:

• (FileSystemItem *)rootItemWithPath:(NSString *)path { if ([path isEqualToString:@”/”]) return [FileSystemItem rootItem]; else { NSString *parentPath = [path stringByDeletingLastPathComponent]; return [[FileSystemItem alloc] initWithPath:path parent:[FileSystemItem rootItemWithPath:parentPath]]; } }

The reason you can’t use this to create any item is because you’ll end up with duplicates. To use this method, use the original code for DataSource, except change [FileSystemItem rootItem] to [FileSystemItem rootItemWithPath:@”/path/to/wherever”] –JediKnil

---

The above code works great for folders that are only one level deep (“/Volumes” “/Library” “/Applications”), but it will not work with deeper directories. How would one go about doing this?

Use the rootItemWithPath: code to initialize your root directory, instead of initWithPath:parent:

---

So I changed:

• (FileSystemItem *)volumeAtIndex:(int)index { if (volumeDir == nil) volumeDir = [[FileSystemItem alloc] initWithPath:[@”~/Library/Application Support/” stringByExpandingTildeInPath] parent:[FileSystemItem rootItem]];

  return [volumeDir childAtIndex:(index + 1)]; // +1 because of .DS_STORE. This really shouldn’t be hardcoded. }

To

• (FileSystemItem *)volumeAtIndex:(int)index { if (volumeDir == nil) volumeDir = [FileSystemItem rootItemWithPath:[@”~/Library/Application Support/” stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];

  return [volumeDir childAtIndex:(index + 1)]; // +1 because of .DS_STORE. This really shouldn’t be hardcoded. }

Now it ‘works’ - but doesn’t display all of the items in the directory (missing about half the files). Did I do something incredibly stupid? Thanks for all the assistance.

You might have to change numVolumes as well…or maybe you just maxed out your outline view (unlikely, though – Application Support doesn’t have that much in it, I thought). Otherwise, you’ve got me stumped on this one. And you’re welcome…sorry about this one. –JediKnil

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it has nohing to do with the outline view being maxed out. I made the numVolumes method uuse the rootItemWithPath method and I recieve a crash on launch (EXEC_BAD_ACCESS). Hmm…It doesn’t make much sense ;).

Are there any other examples that demonstrate a finder like NSOutlineView? – The Apple example is pretty weak�