NSTextView

We have our strings, we have our attributes, and we'll now take a look at the place where we put them to use: NSTextView.

An NSTextView, a subclass of NSText, is actually a complex, multi-facetted object, consisting of a small, specialized stack of object types, all hidden behind what appears to the user to be nothing but a blank part of the screen. If only they knew.

NSTextView provides the view in which the text is displayed, exposing the properties textContainer and textStorage, with which we can supply it with text, and display that text on the screen. The two objects that these properties expose communicate with each other via a LayoutManager object.

The MVC pattern of text views

Cocoa's text view is in fact a microcosmic version of the Model-View-Controller design pattern followed by so much of Apple's frameworks:

• NSTextStorage is the model, containing all the string and attributes data
• NSTextContainer is the view, providing the de facto page onto which we draw text
• NSLayoutManager...