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Selectable Toolbar Items

NSToolbar allows you to specify that certain items in the toolbar can indicate a selected state. This is often used in conjunction with an NSTabView that is configured to have no visible tabs. Figure 1 contains an example implementation similar to that of Safari and the Finder.

Figure 1  Selectable NSToolbar items used as preferences navigation

Toolbars that need to indicate item selection must specify the items that can be selected by implementing the delegate method toolbarSelectableItemIdentifiers:. This method returns an array containing the identifiers of the items that can be selected. The example Listing 1in returns all the identifiers for the preferences implementation.

Listing 1  Example implementation of toolbarSelectableItemIdentifiers:

- (NSArray *)toolbarSelectableItemIdentifiers: (NSToolbar *)toolbar;

{

    // Optional delegate method: Returns the identifiers of the subset of

    // toolbar items that are selectable. In our case, all of them

    return [NSArray arrayWithObjects:GeneralPreferences,

                                    AccountPreferences,

                                    AppearancePreferences,

                                    FontsAndColorsPreferences,

                                    AdvancedPreferences, nil];

}

Your application can specify the currently selected toolbar item using the method setSelectedItemIdentifier: passing the identifier for the desired toolbar item. The currently selected toolbar item is returned by the method selectedItemIdentifier:. If there is no currently selected, nil is returned.

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