PSDetailController

PSDetailController is a view controller controlling a custom editing pane.

Detail controller in Specifier plist

PSDetailController is in fact a misnomer, because the detail key in the preferences specifier plist can be any PSViewController (usually a subclass of PSListController). Actually, the only requirement of the detail key is the class must adopt the informal protocol

@protocol PSDetailController <PSViewController>
-(id)initForContentSize:(CGSize)size;
-(void)viewWillBecomeVisible:(PSSpecifier*)spec;
-(void)handleURL:(NSURL*)url;
@optional
+(void)validateSpecifier:(PSSpecifier*)srcSpecifier;
@end

The detail controller class will be sent a +validateSpecifier: message if one exists right after the bundle is lazy-loaded:

@implementation PSRootController
...
-(void)lazyLoadBundle:(PSSpecifier*)srcSpecifier {
        ...
        if ([srcSpecifier->detailControllerClass respondsToSelector:@selector(validateSpecifier:)])
                [srcSpecifier->detailControllerClass validateSpecifier:srcSpecifier];
}
...
@end

Whenever a view becomes visible, a detail controller class instance will be allocated with -initForContentSize:, and then call -viewWillBecomeVisible: to notify that the view becomes visibile. There is also some other calls to the controller but you'd better leave them untouched.

...
id<PSDetailController> detailController = [[[spec->detailControllerClass alloc]
                                                                         initForContentSize:someListController.view.bounds.size]
                                                                         autorelease];
detailController.rootController = _parentController.rootController;
detailController.parentController = _parentController;
[detailController viewWillBecomeVisible:spec];
...

External links

• Header: http://github.com/kennytm/iphone-private-frameworks/blob/master/Preferences/PSDetailController.h