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I’ve left my starter code here, but would suggest interested programers checkout:

http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/DevPotPourri.html

first. It implements the entire Mail.app search text field behavior.

• Jesse

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Here’s some starter code for creating a Mail.app like search field (rounded, magnifying glass, close button…). But it doesn’t really work! I’ve seen a number of questions regarding this, hopefully we can get this fully functional, will probably save many people lots of time.

So here’s my start, (I?ve come to the conclusion that I don?t really understand NSCell?s yet) I would encourage people to clean it up and make it as “cocoa” as possible, I’m looking for a working well done search field, I don’t really care if it follows the design of my current partial solution. This code seems to draw mostly correctly, but I can?t seem to get mouse events and so can?t make the close button work. Also I haven?t added a popup menu for when the magnifying glass is clicked on, I don?t need that for my app, but it would still be nice to see how to do it.

I’ve provided a project builder project along with image resources for this code at: http://www.hogbay.com/software/SearchTextAreaExample.zip

// // SearchFieldCell.h // // Created by Jesse Grosjean on Thu Nov 21 2002. //

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

@interface SearchFieldCell : NSTextFieldCell { BOOL _showCancelButton; }

• (NSRect)textRectForFrame:(NSRect)frame;

@end

// // SearchFieldCell.m // // Created by Jesse Grosjean on Thu Nov 21 2002. //

#import “SearchFieldCell.h”

@implementation SearchFieldCell

static NSImage *leftSearchCapImage = nil; static NSImage *middleSearchImage = nil; static NSImage *rightSearchCapImage = nil; static NSImage *rightSearchStopCapImage = nil; static NSImageCell *_leftCapCell; static NSImageCell *_middleCell; static NSImageCell *_rightCapCell; static NSImageCell *_rightStopCapCell; static float textOffset = 2.5; // yuck why do i use this?

• (void)initialize { leftSearchCapImage = [[NSImage imageNamed: @”LeftSearchCap”] retain]; middleSearchImage = [[NSImage imageNamed: @”MiddleSearch”] retain]; rightSearchCapImage = [[NSImage imageNamed: @”RightSearchCap”] retain]; rightSearchStopCapImage = [[NSImage imageNamed: @”RightSearchStopCap”] retain]; _leftCapCell = [[NSImageCell alloc] initImageCell:leftSearchCapImage]; _middleCell = [[NSImageCell alloc] initImageCell:middleSearchImage]; _rightCapCell = [[NSImageCell alloc] initImageCell:rightSearchCapImage]; _rightStopCapCell = [[NSImageCell alloc] initImageCell:rightSearchStopCapImage]; [_leftCapCell setImageAlignment:NSImageAlignLeft]; [_middleCell setImageScaling:NSScaleToFit]; [_rightCapCell setImageAlignment:NSImageAlignRight]; [_rightStopCapCell setImageAlignment:NSImageAlignRight]; }

• (id)initTextCell:(NSString *)text { if (self = [super initTextCell:text]) { _showCancelButton = [text length] > 0; } return self; }

• (BOOL)showsFirstResponder { return NO; }

• (BOOL)wraps { return NO; }

• (BOOL)isScrollable { return YES; }

• (NSText *)setUpFieldEditorAttributes:(NSText *)textObj { return [super setUpFieldEditorAttributes:textObj]; }

• (void)selectWithFrame:(NSRect)aRect inView:(NSView *)controlView editor:(NSText *)textObj delegate:(id)anObject start:(int)selStart length:(int)selLength {

  [super selectWithFrame:[self textRectForFrame:aRect] inView:controlView editor:textObj delegate:anObject start:selStart length:selLength]; }

• (void)drawInteriorWithFrame:(NSRect)cellFrame inView:(NSView *)controlView { NSRect textRect = [self textRectForFrame:cellFrame]; NSRect middleRect = textRect; middleRect.origin.y -= textOffset; middleRect.origin.x -= 1; middleRect.size.width += 2;

  if ([super showsFirstResponder] && controlView window] isKeyWindow]) { [[[NSGraphicsContext saveGraphicsState]; NSSetFocusRingStyle(NSFocusRingOnly); [_leftCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; [_rightCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; [_middleCell drawWithFrame:middleRect inView:controlView]; [NSGraphicsContext restoreGraphicsState]; }

  [_leftCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; [_rightCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; [_middleCell drawWithFrame:middleRect inView:controlView];

  if (_showCancelButton) { [_rightStopCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; } else { [_rightCapCell drawWithFrame:cellFrame inView:controlView]; } [super drawInteriorWithFrame:textRect inView:controlView]; }

• (void)editWithFrame:(NSRect)aRect inView:(NSView *)controlView editor:(NSText *)textObj delegate:(id)anObject event:(NSEvent *)theEvent {

  [super editWithFrame:[self textRectForFrame:aRect] inView:controlView editor:textObj delegate:anObject event:theEvent]; }

• (NSRect)textRectForFrame:(NSRect)frame { frame.origin.x += [leftSearchCapImage size].width; frame.origin.y += textOffset; frame.size.width -= [leftSearchCapImage size].width; frame.size.width -= [rightSearchCapImage size].width; return frame; }

• (NSMenu *)menuForEvent:(NSEvent *)anEvent inRect:(NSRect)cellFrame ofView:(NSView *)aView { return [super menuForEvent:anEvent inRect:cellFrame ofView:aView]; }

• (void)resetCursorRect:(NSRect)cellFrame inView:(NSView *)controlView {

  [super resetCursorRect:[self textRectForFrame:cellFrame] inView:controlView]; }

• (void)setStringValue:(NSString *)string { [super setStringValue:string]; _showCancelButton = [string length] > 0; }

// can’t seem to get any mouse tracking to work.

• (BOOL)trackMouse:(NSEvent *)theEvent inRect:(NSRect)cellFrame ofView:(NSView *)controlView untilMouseUp:(BOOL)untilMouseUp {

  NSLog(@”tracking”); return [super trackMouse:theEvent inRect:cellFrame ofView:controlView untilMouseUp:untilMouseUp]; }

• (BOOL)startTrackingAt:(NSPoint)startPoint inView:(NSView *)controlView { NSLog(@”start tracking”); return [self startTrackingAt:startPoint inView:controlView]; // return NO; }

@end

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You could probably subclass CCDTextField and/or CCDTextFieldCell and add some search-specific stuff pretty easily.