Programmatically sorting NSTableView

Question

I know how to make a tableview user-click sortable but how to sort it programmatically (without using an NSArrayController)? The docs are skimpy on this. Here is what I got:

private func updateThemeTableView()
{
    _tableViewDataDict = getAssociatedThemesFor(_type);
    _tableView.reloadData();

    let sort = NSSortDescriptor(key: "Theme", ascending: true, selector: "caseInsensitiveCompare:");
    _tableView.sortDescriptors = [sort];
}

But this doesn't work.

What is the key used here? Should this be the table view column name or the column identifier (set in IB)?

When to apply the sort? (I suppose after _tableViewDataDict received the data and reloadData(), whereafter NSTableViewDataSource.viewForTableColumn() does its business?)

Is the sort selector valid or do I have to provide a method for this?

Why dont you sort the data in the dictionary, and then reload the tableView data? — Dejan Skledar, Apr 30 '15 at 06:41
That would possibly a solution. Care to explain how? I tried _tableViewDataDict = sorted(_tableViewDataDict) { $0.0 < $1.0 } but that gives me an error: Cannot assign a value of type '[(String, Int)]' to a value of type '[String : Int]!' — BadmintonCat, Apr 30 '15 at 06:48
What is the structure of your _tableViewDataDict ? [Stirng : Int] ? — Dejan Skledar, Apr 30 '15 at 06:49
hm, i don't think you can sort dicts, but you need an array to sort... your error message states something like that — Volker, Apr 30 '15 at 07:17

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '15 at 21:13

3

Setting the table's sort descriptors is not enough. You also need to respond to the NSTableViewDelegate method optional func tableView(_ aTableView: NSTableView, sortDescriptorsDidChange oldDescriptors: [AnyObject]) by applying the sort descriptors to your data model then reloading the table's data (via reloadData()). This is true whether you're applying sort descriptors to the entire table (which doesn't let users click column headers) or to individual columns (which does let users click column headers).

As mentioned in comments, you can't sort a dictionary, so you'll need to cache a sorted array and let the table data source methods reference the array instead of the dictionary.

answered Apr 30 '15 at 21:13

Joshua Nozzi

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There seems to be a way of sorting dictionaries as shown here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24090016/sort-dictionary-by-values-in-swift but I haven't tested this yet. In any case, thanks for explaining how to get a table view sorted, which solves my original question! – BadmintonCat May 02 '15 at 04:30
The sorting link appears to be taking the caching approach and bundling it into the class, but sure, that works too. :-) – Joshua Nozzi May 02 '15 at 13:38

Programmatically sorting NSTableView

1 Answers1