Question

I’m creating several menu items programmatically like this :

    NSMenuItem* newItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:t action:s keyEquivalent:e];
    [newItem setTarget:target];
    [newItem setEnabled:YES];

    [self addItem:newItem];

And I want to truncate their contents (in the middle) like that :

Some really really long title —> Some rea…title

I’ve read about using the setLineBreakMode method… but HOW? (I think I’m doing something wrong :-S)

Answer 1

A possible solution consists to use NSAttributedString and the [NSMenuDelegate confinementRectForMenu:onScreen:screen];

confinementRectForMenu is necessary to set the max width you want

Just to show you an example without delegate below I show a menuitem with a very big font

NSMutableParagraphStyle *style = [[NSParagraphStyle defaultParagraphStyle]
                                 mutableCopy];
[style setLineBreakMode:NSLineBreakByTruncatingMiddle];

NSDictionary* paragraphStyle = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:
                 style, NSParagraphStyleAttributeName, 
                 [NSFont fontWithName:@"Lucida Grande" size:43.0f],
                  NSFontAttributeName,
                 nil];
[style release];
NSString* title = @"long titlelong titlelong titlelong titlelong titlelong titlelong and another string titlelong titlelong title end";
NSAttributedString* str = [[[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:title attributes:paragraphStyle] autorelease];

NSMenuItem* newItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:title action:@selector(showWhitespaces:) keyEquivalent:@""];
[newItem setAttributedTitle:str];
[newItem setEnabled:YES];
[theMenu addItem:newItem];