How do I set a default sort order for an NSTableView?

Question

I've got a cocoa app that's got a TableView with bindings to a model through an NSArrayController.

The app works as I want, but the default sort order of the table is wrong.

buildwatch http://public.west.spy.net/BuildWatch.png

I typically start the program and click on the last header twice to get it sorting the right way. Is there a way in the nib/bindings/whatever to specify the default sort order, or to programatically tell it to do what would happen if I clicked there twice? Or even just remember the previous sort order?

Answer 1

Look at NSSortDescriptor.

You can set it up using -setSortDescriptors: on the NSTableView. Or you can put the sort descriptors in an ivar and bind them with the Sort Descriptor binding in IB.

Answer 2

I typically do this sort of thing in -windowDidLoad. Suppose your NSWindowController subclass has the IBOutlet _arrayController set to the NSArrayController in question, and that your model possesses the property buildETA:

NSSortDescriptor *buildETASortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"buildETA" ascending:NO];
[_arrayController setSortDescriptors:[NSArray arrayWithObject:buildETASortDescriptor]];
[buildETASortDescriptor release];

Edit: Changed -awakeFromNib to -windowDidLoad since this is a hypothetical NSWindowController subclass