Overriding "Edited" in window title for NSDocument

Question

How do I prevent a window title from displaying "Edited" for an NSDocument which is dirty?

I'm managing saving and autosaving myself, using a web service, and just don't want the distraction in the title bar.

I've tried overriding:

• NSDocument's -isDocumentEdited and -hasUnautosavedChanges always to return NO.
• -[NSWindowController setDocumentEdited] to do nothing, or always to use NO regardless of the parameter's actual value.
• -[NSWindowController synchronizeWindowTitleWithDocumentName] to do nothing.
• -[NSWindow setDocumentEdited] to do nothing, or always to use NO regardless of the parameter's actual value.

In all cases, the title bar still changes to Edited when I make changes to a saved document.

If I override -[NSDocument updateChangeCount:] and -[NSDocument updateChangeCountWithToken:forSaveOperation:] to do nothing, I can prevent this from happening, but it affects saving, autosaving, and other document behaviors, too.

I also tried this:

[[self.window standardWindowButton: NSWindowDocumentVersionsButton] setTitle:nil];

That displayed a blank string instead of Edited, but the dash still appeared – the one which normally separates the document name and Edited.

Any idea how to pry apart this part of the window from the document?

Enalda

Answer 1

Several options:

1. To get a pointer to the "dash", look for a TextField in [window.contentView.superview.subviews] with a stringValue equals to "-". You can set its text to an empty string as well.

   @implementation NSWindow (DashRetrivalMethod)
   - (NSTextField*)versionsDashTextField
   {
       NSTextField* res = nil;
       NSView* themeFrame = [self.contentView superview];
       for (NSView* tmp in [themeFrame subviews])
       {
           if ([tmp isKindOfClass:[NSTextField class]])
           {
               if ([[(NSTextField*)tmp stringValue] isEqualToString:@"—"])
               {
                     res = (NSTextField*)tmp;
                     break;
               }
           }
       }
       return res;
   }
   @end
   

2. You can override NSWindow's -setRepresentedURL:. This would also affect the NSWindowDocumentIconButton and the popup menu, but you can manually create it if you want by: [NSWindow standardWindowButton: NSWindowDocumentIconButton].

3. Override one of these three NSDocument's undocumented methods:

   // Always return here NO if you don't want the version button to appear. 
   // This seems to be the cleanest options, besides the fact that you are 
   /// overriding a private method.
   - (BOOL)_shouldShowAutosaveButtonForWindow:(NSWindow*)window;
   
   // Call super with NO
   - (void)_setShowAutosaveButton:(BOOL)flag; 
   
   // Here the button and the dash are actually created
   - (void)_endVersionsButtonUpdates; 
   
   // Here Cocoa hide or unhide the edited button
   - (void)_updateDocumentEditedAndAnimate:(BOOL)flag
   

Pretonic

Excellent solution. @noa you should accept this one. Its awesome. Btw Ben-Uri, by override you mean swizzle right? – Trow

Thanks. No swizzle. Just implement them in your NSDocument subclass as suggested in the comment above each method prototype. – Pretonic

Answer 2

Have you tried overriding NSDocuments - (BOOL)hasUnautosavedChanges in addition to overriding - (BOOL) isDocumentEdited?

Broeker

It's a good thought. After autosaving, though, Edited appears until the user explicitly initiates a Save operation, by Apple's design. That said, I tested it anyway: having both -hasUnautosavedChanges and -isDocumentEdited return NO, Edited appeared anyway. – Enalda

Ok, this was my only idea unfortunately. I assume that dropping NSDocument as basis for the application, and only using NSDocumentController, would require a major rewrite of your application? – Broeker

That's right. Reimplementing -updateChangeCount:, -updateChangeCountForToken:forSaveOperation:, -isDocumentEdited and -hasUnautosavedChanges might be feasible, but even that seems drastic, and potentially difficult to maintain. Not telling the document about its window is another possibility, but again, drastic. – Enalda

Answer 3

Although this is a late answer, you can easily determine what is going to be the title of your NSDocument window by overriding

- (NSString *)windowTitleForDocumentDisplayName:(NSString *)displayName

in your NSWindowController and return the appropriate title.

You can do that also by overriding the property of your NSDocument:

- (NSString *)displayName

but this is not recommended by Apple, because that is normally used by the OS error handlers.

I added this answer, because none of the other answers really set me on the right path.

Yasmeen