How to program a NSOutlineView?

Question

I am having trouble creating a NSOutlineView in Xcode 8 (Swift 3). I have a plist file with some information that I would like to present in an OutlineView. The plist file looks as following (example):

Root                      Dictionary    *(1 item)
    Harry Watson          Dictionary    *(5 items)*
        name              String        Harry Watson
        age               Int           99
        birthplace        String        Westminster
        birthdate         Date          01/01/1000
        hobbies           Array         *(2 items)*
            item 0        String        Tennis
            item 1        String        Piano

The OutlineView should look pretty similar, like follow:

name            Harry Watson
age             99
birthplace      Westminster
birthdate       01/01/1000
> hobbies       ...             (<- this should be expandable)

I already searched for NSOutlineView tutorials on Google, but everything I found was raywenderlich.com, so I read a bit but in my opinion it isn't that easy. So I am wondering whether you could help me with the exact example above and give me some code examples, especially regarding this function:

func outlineView(_ outlineView: NSOutlineView, viewFor tableColumn: NSTableColumn?, item: Any) -> NSView? {}

I am not sure what to write in there.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks in advance and kind regards

How to program a NSOutlineView?

2 Answers