Mac Forum / Programming / Mac Programming / October 2005

Hoping one of you might have come across this before and can provide
some suggestions:

I have a minimal app with an NSTableView whose NSTableColumns have
"value" bindings to an NSArrayController's arrangedObjects. The
NSArrayController's "content" binding in turn is set to a data array of
objects in my controller class. Then I have the obligatory "Add" and
"Delete" buttons wired to the NSArrayController's corresponding methods.

All this is working fine, I can add and remove table rows no problem,
provided I type the data into the fields myself.

However, if I unarchive the data array from disk, the table isn't
updated to reflect that there is now real content data in my array.

I tried [tableView reloadData] but I believe that's for tables that
work the "old" way using tableView:objectValueForTableColumn:row: etc,
not for bindings.

I also tried sending the "rearrangeObjects" message to the
NSArrayController, but that also doens't cause the display to be
updated.

After a few hours I found the only way to "kick" the
table/arraycontroller combination into redisplaying (and hence
displaying the new data in the data array) was insert a dummy entry in
position 0 and then to remove it again, like this:

    [theArrayController insertObject:temp atArrangedObjectIndex:0];
    [theArrayController removeObjectAtArrangedObjectIndex:0];

But that feels kind of slimy :-)

Is there a kindler, gentler way to tell the table (or
NSArrayController) that there is new data to be drawn?

Thanks,

Chris