Is it possible to create a view-based NSTableView purely in code?

Question

I have successfully created a cell-based NSTableView purely in code. I would like to make the cells a little more interesting and I have read that I need to create a view-ba

Answer 1

This was quite useful in my attempt to program scrolling tables without IB & Nibs. Here's my toy version, updated to Swift 4.2.

The custom cell view subclass is only there to let me see that cells actually get re-used, which they do:

    import Cocoa

    class DIYTableViewDataSource: NSObject, NSTableViewDataSource {

        func numberOfRows(in tableView: NSTableView) -> Int {
            return 25
        }
    }

    class CustomTableCellView: NSTableCellView {
        var count = 1
    }

    func createCell(_ id: NSUserInterfaceItemIdentifier) -> CustomTableCellView {
        // Create a text field for the cell
        let textField = NSTextField()
        textField.backgroundColor = NSColor.clear
        textField.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
        textField.isBordered = false

        // Create a cell
        let cell = CustomTableCellView() // Doing this to see that cells get re-used
        cell.identifier = id
        cell.addSubview(textField)
        cell.textField = textField

        // Constrain the text field within the cell
        textField.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: cell.widthAnchor).isActive = true
        textField.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: cell.heightAnchor).isActive = true

        textField.bind(NSBindingName.value, to: cell, withKeyPath: "objectValue", options: nil)

        return cell
    }

    class DIYTableViewDelegate: NSObject, NSTableViewDelegate {

         func tableView(_ tableView: NSTableView, viewFor tableColumn: NSTableColumn?, row: Int) -> NSView? {
             let id = tableColumn!.identifier
             var view = tableView.makeView(withIdentifier: id, owner: nil) as? CustomTableCellView
             if view == nil {
                 view = createCell(id)
             }
             view!.textField!.stringValue = "\(id.rawValue) \(row) \(view!.count)"
             view!.count += 1

             return view
         }
     }