one NSDocument, multiple windows; no focus change

[matt]

I've poked around a bit on getting multiple windows working under the
NSDocument architecture, and have chosen the multiple
NSWindowControllers route.

unfortunately, that didn't solve my initial problem, which is that i
can't seem to get the window focus to change. I have a theory as to
why, but am not certain. here's my setup:

In my NSDocument subclass, I load and parse a rather large file.
While this is happening, I would like another window to pop up in
front. This secondary window would show a progress bar with an
NSTextView spitting out information as it's parsing. I've managed to
get text spitting out fine, but my problem is that this subwindow
doesn't seem to have 'focus' -- i.e., the little red,yellow, and green
buttons in the upper left aren't on.

One theory is that the actual code that does the parsing is inside the
NSDocument subclass, whose main window is not the "loading" window.
Here's a snippet called from the NSDocument subclass:

{
[[self window] orderOut:self];
[loadingWindow orderFront: self];

[self reparseEverything];

[loadingWindow orderOut:self];
[[self window] orderFront: self];
}

during 'reparseEverything', i call a method on loadingWindow which
spits out text and does a [textView display] to update itself (being
the subwindow).

am i right in thinking that because the actual time-consuming process
happens in code run by my NSDocument subclass, which owns the main
window, the focus won't change to my desired "currently loading"
subwindow?

thanks
m

[matt neuburg]

In <fa39fc69.0309112345.4cdc99f9@posting.google.com > matt wrote:

> I've poked around a bit on getting multiple windows working under the
> NSDocument architecture, and have chosen the multiple
> NSWindowControllers route.
>
> unfortunately, that didn't solve my initial problem, which is that i
> can't seem to get the window focus to change. I have a theory as to
> why, but am not certain. here's my setup:
>
> In my NSDocument subclass, I load and parse a rather large file.
> While this is happening, I would like another window to pop up in
> front. This secondary window would show a progress bar with an
> NSTextView spitting out information as it's parsing. I've managed to
> get text spitting out fine, but my problem is that this subwindow
> doesn't seem to have 'focus' -- i.e., the little red,yellow, and green
> buttons in the upper left aren't on.
>
> One theory is that the actual code that does the parsing is inside the
> NSDocument subclass, whose main window is not the "loading" window.
> Here's a snippet called from the NSDocument subclass:
>
> {
> [[self window] orderOut:self];
> [loadingWindow orderFront: self];
>
> [self reparseEverything];
>
> [loadingWindow orderOut:self];
> [[self window] orderFront: self];
>}
>
> during 'reparseEverything', i call a method on loadingWindow which
> spits out text and does a [textView display] to update itself (being
> the subwindow).
>
> am i right in thinking that because the actual time-consuming process
> happens in code run by my NSDocument subclass, which owns the main
> window, the focus won't change to my desired "currently loading"
> subwindow?

Instead of formulating a big complicated theory about what's happening
behind the scenes, what about considering the docs on orderFront? The
docs specificially say that this method doesn't make its window key or
main, so you can hardly be surprised if your window doesn't become key
or main. m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = [email]matt@tidbits.com[/email], [url]http://www.tidbits.com/matt[/url]
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