Describe General/TableColumnHeaderRightClick here.

im trying to get a contextual menu to pop-up when a column header is right clicked to add and remove columns ala itunes. i’ve already added view options where you can add and remove columns via checkboxes (like itunes) but i also want to have right click work in the column header and can’t figure it out for the life of me. the tables themselves have contextual menus so i already have that taken care of (thanks to alot of the information on cocoadev :) ) any help would be super appreciated.

---

An General/NSTableHeaderView is simply a subclass of General/NSView. Subclass it and add your own methods for right clicking such as popping up a contextual menu (lots of information on this site, especially useful may be the General/RightClickSelectInTableView page). Then use General/NSTableView’s setHeaderView: method to add it.

---

This can be implemented this by doing the following:

The window controller has the following in the @interface of the .h-file:

General/IBOutlet General/NSTableView *theTable; General/IBOutlet General/NSMenu *columnsMenu; General/IBOutlet General/NSTableColumn *tcColumnOne; General/IBOutlet General/NSTableColumn *tcColumnTwo; General/IBOutlet General/NSTableColumn *tcColumnThree;

In the corresponding .nib-file, an General/NSMenu needs to be created with one menu item for each column in the table. These should have their tag set to 0, 1, 2 etc.

The variable columnsMenu should be connected to the created General/NSMenu, in the controller. Each of the above General/IBOutlets should be connected to their corresponding General/NSTableColumns. theTable should be connected to the table containing the columns.

Then create a method in the controller:

• (General/IBAction)toggleColumn:(id)sender { General/NSTableColumn *tc = nil;

  switch([sender tag]) { case 0: tc = tcColumnOne; break; case 1: tc = tcColumnTwo; break; case 2: tc = tcColumnThree; break; }

  if(tc == nil) return;

  if([sender state] == General/NSOffState) { [sender setState:General/NSOnState]; [theTable addTableColumn:tc]; } else { [sender setState:General/NSOffState]; [theTable removeTableColumn:tc]; } }

“theTable” should be the variable name of your table. Then connect each menu item in the created General/NSMenu to the toggleColumn method, as action.

And to complete this, add the following code to the awakeFromNib method in your controller:

• (void)awakeFromNib { [tcColumnOne retain]; [tcColumnTwo retain]; [tcColumnThree retain];

  General/NSArray *tcs = [theTable tableColumns]; General/NSEnumerator *e = [tcs objectEnumerator]; General/NSTableColumn *tc; while((tc = [e nextObject]) != nil) { if(tc == tcColumnOne) General/columnsMenu itemWithTag:0] setState:[[NSOnState]; else if(tc == tcColumnTwo) General/columnsMenu itemWithTag:1] setState:[[NSOnState]; else if(tc == tcColumnThree) General/columnsMenu itemWithTag:2] setState:[[NSOnState]; }

  [[theTable headerView] setMenu:columnsMenu]; }

And don’t forget to release the columns in the dealloc method:

• (void)dealloc { [tcColumnOne release]; [tcColumnTwo release]; [tcColumnThree release];

  [super dealloc]; }

I may have missed something, but try that out.