How do I add same subviews to NSView?

I have write font library, which produces glyphs in NSViews. Next, when I want to create string of them, same chars shows only once, as [NSView addSubview:] don’t add same views twice! How do I overcome this?

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If I understand you correctly, you’ve written a library where every character has a different view. This is not the right design; conceptually a string is generally a single unit of information and should be displayed in a single view. Even assuming weird circumstances where this is not the case (maybe a CAPTCHA, say, which can’t have a nice pretty string being drawn), you still want to draw your whole string in one view’s drawing method (even if you farm it out to something like NSLayoutManager, like NSTextView does). Even if you are absolutely convinced that this design does not apply to you, there’s still a conceptual drain on the system for theoretically infinite views. A glyph does not need a view of its own.

Finally, you can’t add ever views twice. If you have two buttons labeled “OK”, you actually have two NSButtons labeled “OK”. If you ever need the same view twice, implement NSCopying and copy it. –JediKnil

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If you’d like to display a grid of glyphs, you may want to take a look at NSMatrix and NSCell. –BenStiglitz