Comments on: Getting Started with Cocoa: a Friendlier Approach

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:54:52 +0000

Hi MacFan777.

Thanks for the info.

You can read up on the differences between .nib and .xib at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Builder.

Specifically (from that page): “Interface Builder saves an application’s interface as a directory hive that contains the interface objects and relationships used in the application. These objects are marshalled into either an XML file or a NeXT-style property list file with a .nib extension. Upon running an application, the proper NIB objects are unpacked, connected into the binary of their owning application, and awakened. Unlike other GUI designer systems which generate code to construct the UI, NIBs are often referred to as freeze dried because they contain the archived objects themselves, ready to run. As of Interface Builder version 3, a new file format (with extension .xib) has been added, which is functionally identical to .nib, except it is stored in a flat file. One advantage is that atomic operations may be performed on the .xib file which are not available for .nib’s containers.”

By: macfan777

macfan777 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:28:19 +0000

Phil, I’ve just gone through the Learn Cocoa II tutorial and here’s what I did to get it to work. When you get to the point about dragging AppController.h into the IB window, instead drag a new NSObject (the blue cube) to it from the Library, go to its Inspector window’s Identity tab and select AppController from the Class drop-down menu. Then skip the step to create an instance because that’s what inserting the NSObject just did. Then to do the connection the only difference is that a small transparent window pops up where you simply click textView to complete the connection instead of selecting from a list and hitting the Connect button. Same for the button connection. Works like a charm once you figure out the differences.

Also, does anyone know the difference between a .nib and a .xib file? Mine is a .xib, but it behaves exactly like a .nib.

By: Phil Faber

Phil Faber — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:56:32 +0000

Thanks for this. It made it SO much easier to figure out what I needed to read up on to move forward with Cocoa. My problem, though, is this: I’m running Leopard and got to your bit which read “If you are using Leopard, things will get a little difficult here due to massive changes in Interface Builder.” It then tried Reading 1.02: (”Learn Cocoa II” at Cocoa Dev Central) but so much didn’t work in Leopard that I couldn’t complete the task! I tried to move on but then lesson 3 required me to re-write the program that I couldn’t write in the first place! So I’m back in the dark again. Have you written an update for Leopard yet? If not, how should I proceed?

Basically, I’m now trying to do lesson 3 now but your suggestion is to study NSSring and NSDate; Cocoa Browser SN only gives me a massive list of things I don’t know what to choose from, NSString is referred to as “The Application Kit adds three methods to the NSString class to support drawing string objects directly in an NSView instance: drawAtPoint:withAttributes:, drawInRect:withAttributes:, and sizeWithAttributes:.” which means nothing to me and I’m tearing my hair out again! I’ve worked out how to produce the window, buttons, textfields, etc but can’t figure out how to join the “hello” text to the name itself. I’m can even make the message box display a NUMBER once the button is clicked (setIntValue) but have no idea who to handle the string.

HELP!!

By: Joseph Crawford

Joseph Crawford — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:34:50 +0000

Andy,

Please contact me about private tutoring My e-mail is linked to this comment.

By: colm Gallagher

colm Gallagher — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:04:23 +0000

nice map dude, cheers!

ps - to help with the xcode 3 differences, I used this additional resource
http://www.matthew-long.com/2007/11/09/xcode-30-tutorial/

helps to plug the gaps where Scott’s tutorials leave off

By: macdet

macdet — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:35:38 +0000

Great article. Thx. I believe it`s time to play with.

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By: Naseer Khan

Naseer Khan — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:01:04 +0000

Hey Andy,

Thanks for the time and effort expended to put this great reference together. I’ve been searching through the vast amount of information available to filter in just the immediately relevant tutorials for Xcode 3 and Obj-C 2. Your study plan reference a lot of current or recently updated items which helps a lot.

It’s amazing how fast the comments dropped off after October, and yet this aid will be useful for quite some time to come. I’m just getting started pulling the cobwebs off my old C and Unix programming skills to dive into Obj-C and Cocoa. If I stay on track, I’ll report back my success…!!! Wish me luck…

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:16:41 +0000

This was great. I’m a professional developer with experience in c, c++, c#, java, et al. and was having a hard time picking up objective-c and cocoa due to the odd syntax, massive framework and dry Apple articles. I made it through this page in a couple of two hour sessions and it really helped make the language and framework appear to be manageable. Great work on that. The order of articles was spot on and you did a great job of building each step on previous knowledge.
The only place I deviated was in the memory management section. Being familiar with both managed and unmanaged memory systems, I was intrigued by the o-c system, so I skipped ahead an read that bit pretty early =)
Thank you for putting all of this together!

By: Andy Matuschak

Andy Matuschak — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:24:50 +0000

I had to change some things to make it work in Leopard, but it works on my Tiger machine just fine.

By: hrishim

hrishim — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:16:56 +0000

The document browser Cocoa Browser SN - is this still working. I tried using it but could not get it to work. I think it is not indexing the documentation correctly. I started using AppKiDo instead. Past the Mad Scientist lesson…still chugging along.