Making your app look good for OS X

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Mac users expect apps on OS X to look pretty. If it doesn't look pretty you'll have cranky users. Cranky users can be avoided by implementing some of these tips. (This page is, of course, a work in progress)

This could also be seen as a page where wxMac specific functionality is documented...

Contents

[edit] Application Level

  • Handling files opened by double-clicking a file (or dragging file onto application): Implement the wxApp virtual method MacOpenFile. This is handled automatically for you if you use the Document/View Framework
  • Not Quitting when last window closes: (Mac users don't expect this behavior): call wxApp's SetExitOnFrameDelete(false) somewhere in you app (in your OnInit() maybe?)

[edit] Top Level Windows

  • The System Option mac.window-plain-transition can get rid of the "zooming" window transition that happens automatically when a window is opened or closed. 
wxSystemOptions::SetOptionInt( wxMAC_WINDOW_PLAIN_TRANSITION, 0 )
  • Modal wxDialogs should not have enabled close buttons on them. Make sure your styles for wxDialog based instances of this type do not contain wxCLOSE_BOX. See the discussion of dialog boxes in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines

[edit] Fonts

Usually wxSMALL_FONT, etc do the right thing on OS X. But sometimes the HIGs recommend a font that doesn't exist as a preexisting wxWidgets font. There's an answer to this: 

wxFont macFont;
 
macFont.MacCreateThemeFont(APPEARANCE MANAGER FONT ID );

The list of possible parameters for this function is found at Appearance Manager: Font IDs. The Human Interface Guidelines Font Section is useful for seeing the font required for a given situation. (Use the Carbon Constant!)

[edit] Controls

[edit] wxTextCtrl

  • Spell Checking: OS X comes with a built-in spell checker for editable text controls that want to turn it on. OS X users expect their text to be spell checked, except in places where this checking just doesn't make any sense (like logs or source code).

By default this feature is off, but you can turn it on by default by turning on the system option wxMAC_TEXTCONTROL_USE_SPELL_CHECKER 

wxSystemOptions::SetOptionInt( wxMAC_TEXTCONTROL_USE_SPELL_CHECKER, 1 );

If you want to turn spell checking on for an individual control, but not for every text control in your app, call the wxTextCtrl's MacCheckSpelling(spellCheckerOn). 

wxTextCtrl* myTextControl = ....
 
#if __WXMAC__
myTextControl->MacCheckSpelling(true);   spell checking on!
#endif
Retrieved from "http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Making_your_app_look_good_for_OS_X"
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