Question

Is there a way I can get ALL the views and subviews and subviews of these subviews (you get the idea…) of an NSWindow?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here is a category on NSView:

@interface NSView (MDRecursiveSubviews)
- (NSArray *)md__allSubviews;
@end

@implementation NSView (MDRecursiveSubviews)

- (NSArray *)md__allSubviews {
    NSMutableArray *allSubviews = [NSMutableArray arrayWithObject:self];
    NSArray *subviews = [self subviews];
    for (NSView *view in subviews) {
        [allSubviews addObjectsFromArray:[view md__allSubviews]];
    }
    return [[allSubviews copy] autorelease];
}

@end

With a quick nib file I created with a view hierarchy, it printed this:

[RecursiveSubviewsAppDelegate awakeFromNib] allSubviews == (
    "<NSView: 0x10390dfd0>",
    "<NSView: 0x103c07ae0>",
    "<NSView: 0x100129cc0>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100115ce0>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100116900>",
    "<NSButton: 0x1001165c0>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100116130>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100114ad0>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100115910>",
    "<NSButton: 0x100115090>",
    "<NSScrollView: 0x103b07a30>",
    "<NSClipView: 0x103b07d40>",
    "<NSTextView: 0x103b083c0>\n
Frame = {{0.00, 0.00}, {159.00, 58.00}},
Bounds = {{0.00, 0.00}, {159.00, 58.00}}\n
Horizontally resizable: NO, Vertically resizable: YES\n
MinSize = {159.00, 58.00}, MaxSize = {463.00, 10000000.00}\n",
    "<NSScroller: 0x1001145b0>",
    "<NSScroller: 0x100114840>",
    "<NSScrollView: 0x10390ea00>",
    "<NSClipView: 0x10390ef10>",
    "<NSTableView: 0x10390f570>",
    "<NSScroller: 0x103b06f10>",
    "<NSScroller: 0x103b07460>",
    "<NSClipView: 0x1039105d0>",
    "<NSTableHeaderView: 0x103910300>",
    "<_NSCornerView: 0x103911c20>"

One note of concern I should add is that it’s unclear to me how this would be useful, except as a debugging tool. But even then, there are probably easier ways of doing things.