How to get selected item of NSOutlineView without using NSTreeController?

Question

How do I get the selected item of an NSOutlineView with using my own data source. I see I can get selectedRow but it returns a row ID relative to the state of the outline. The only way to do it is to track the expanded collapsed state of the items, but that seems ridiculous.

I was hoping for something like:

array = [outlineViewOutlet selectedItems];

I looked at the other similar questions, they dont seem to answer the question.

In case anyone stumbles on this and is trying to find an answer for swift, this is a port of the below code. `println(MainOutlineList.itemAtRow(MainOutlineList.selectedRow))` — nsij22, Apr 28 '15 at 20:30

score 80 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 12 '10 at 17:25

80

NSOutlineView inherits from NSTableView, so you get nice methods such as selectedRow:

id selectedItem = [outlineView itemAtRow:[outlineView selectedRow]];

answered Feb 12 '10 at 17:25

Dave DeLong

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1

Thank you SO much that works just as intended. I wish it was easier to find it in the Apple docs... – Ronaldo Nascimento Feb 12 '10 at 17:36
Great ! and so simple ! – Colas Aug 27 '13 at 15:15
It returns -1 for selected row, can you guide im missing something? – Xander Dec 09 '13 at 09:07
@Xander that would mean nothing is selected (`-1` is `NSNotFound`). – Dave DeLong Dec 09 '13 at 17:01

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 03 '20 at 14:03

Swift 5

NSOutlineView has a delegate method outlineViewSelectionDidChange

 func outlineViewSelectionDidChange(_ notification: Notification) {

    // Get the outline view from notification object
    guard let outlineView = notification.object as? NSOutlineView else {return}

    // Here you can get your selected item using selectedRow
    if let item = outlineView.item(atRow: outlineView.selectedRow) {
      
    }
}

Bonus Tip: You can also get the parent item of the selected item like this:

func outlineViewSelectionDidChange(_ notification: Notification) {

// Get the outline view from notification object
guard let outlineView = notification.object as? NSOutlineView else {return}

// Here you can get your selected item using selectedRow
if let item = outlineView.item(atRow: outlineView.selectedRow) {
  
     // Get the parent item
      if let parentItem = outlineView.parent(forItem: item){
            
      }  
   } 
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 14 '18 at 19:40

1

@Dave De Long: excellent answer, here is the translation to Swift 3.0

@objc private func onItemClicked() {
    if let item = outlineView.item(atRow: outlineView.clickedRow) as? FileSystemItem {
        print("selected item url: \(item.fileURL)")
    }
}

Shown is a case where item is from class FileSystemItem with a property fileURL.

edited Jul 14 '18 at 19:40

pkamb

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answered Feb 06 '17 at 14:57

Erich Kuester

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How to get selected item of NSOutlineView without using NSTreeController?

3 Answers3