Learn Cocoa on the Mac

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents at a Glance

Table of Contents

Foreword

About the Authors

About the Technical Reviewer

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1 Must Love Cocoa

Get a Mac and Download the Tools

Download the Source Code

Getting Help

What You Need to Know Before You Begin

Are You Ready?

Chapter 2 Hello, World

Building “Hello, World”

Exploring the Nib File

The Library

Dragging Out a Label

Using the Blue Guidelines

The Inspector Window

The Attributes Inspector

Change the Label’s Color and Font

Using the Menu Editor

Creating Your Application Icon

Adding Your Icon to Your Project

Property Lists

Running Your Application

Sharing Your Creation With the World

Goodbye, Hello World

Chapter 3 Lights, Camera… Actions! (and Outlets, Too)

This Chapter’s Application

Frameworks, Frameworks Everywhere

The Foundation Framework

The AppKit Framework

The Cocoa Way: Model-View-Controller

Outlets, Actions, and Controllers

Declaring Outlets

Declaring Actions

Outlets and Actions in Action

Enabling Garbage Collection

Creating Our Controller Class

Declaring an Action and Outlet

Back to Interface Builder

Proxy Objects

Creating the Controller Instance

Setting Up the Window

Designing the Window’s Interface

Connecting the Outlet

Connecting the Buttons to Our Action

Implementing the Action Method

The Application Delegate

Configuring the Application to Quit on Window Close

Using the Documentation Browser

Bring It on Home

Chapter 4 GUI Components

Creating the VillainTracker Application

Creating the VillainTrackerAppDelegate Class

Planning for the GUI

Building Your Interface

Bringing Out Your Text Fields

Letting them Pick Dates

Creating the Combo Box

Indicating a Rating with a Level Indicator

Adding Radio Buttons in a Matrix

Adding an Image View

Adding Checkboxes in a Matrix

Configuring a Popup Button

Inserting a Text View

Making Logical Groupings

Resizing

Time for the Controller

Making All the Connections

Getting Started with Coding

Standardizing Key Names

Creating the Default Villain

Paying Attention to Detail

Setting Simple Values

Values in Complex Controls

Responding to Input

In Conclusion

Chapter 5 Using Table Views

Preparing AppController for Multiple Villains

Making Way for the Table View

Tweaking the Autosizing Characteristics

Making Some New Connections

Making Way for the Table View: Code Edition

The Table View Needs Your Help

Adding and Deleting Villains

In Conclusion

Chapter 6 Cocoa Bindings

Binding to Simple Controls

Create the DungeonThing Project

Create a Preferences Window

Add a Tab View

Character Generation Preferences

Monster Generation Preferences

Dungeon Generation Preferences

Binding to NSUserDefaultsController

Bindings for Character Generation

Bindings for Monster Generation

Bindings for Dungeon Generation

Create the Main Window

Set Up the DungeonThingAppDelegate

Define Your Constants

Specify Default Preferences Values

Create the Action Methods

Binding to a Table View

Make the Code Bindings-Ready

Show History in Tables

Dealing With Inconsistencies in Nib Files

Configuring the Table Views and Text Views

Create and Configure an Array Controller

Bind Table Display via the Array Controller

Bind a Text Field via the Array Controller’s Selection

Making Sure it Works

Rinse, Repeat, Rinse, Repeat

Okay, But How Did That Work?

Key-Value Coding

Key-Value Observing

Cocoa Bindings: How It Works

In Conclusion

Chapter 7 Core Data Basics

What You’ve Been Missing

Creating MythBase

Defining the Model

Using Xcode’s Model Editor

Creating an Entity

Creating Attributes

Attributes for Unsupported Types

The Automatic GUI

Refining the GUI

Exploring the Template Code

The App Delegate Interface

The App Delegate Implementation

The applicationSupportDirectory Method

The managedObjectModel Accessor Method

The persistentStoreCoordinator Accessor Method

The managedObjectContext Accessor Method

An NSWindow Delegate Method

The saveAction: Action Method

An NSApplication Delegate Method

The Obligatory Dealloc Method

Adding Business Logic

Validating Single Attributes

Validating Multiple Attributes

Creating a Custom Attribute

In Conclusion

Chapter 8 Core Data Relationships

Modeling New Entities and Relationships

Model Versioning and Migrations

Preparing for Multiple Model Versions

Adding New Entities

Add Relationships

Creating a Simple Migration

Time to Run

Updating the GUI

Create the Band Window

Giving Useful Names to Array Controllers

Putting People in Bands

Showing the Bands’ Members

Create a Venue Window

Adding a Gig List to the Band Window

Wrapping Up Relationships

Chapter 9 Search and Retrieve Core Data with Criteria

Creating QuoteMonger

Create the Project and Its Data Model

The Data Entry Window

A Two-Part Autogenerated Window

Smoothing Out the Rough Spots

Enter Some Initial Quotes

Creating the Quote Finder Window

Limiting Results with NSPredicate

Creating Predicates

Specifying an NSAppController’s Predicate in Interface Builder

User-Defined Predicates

Adding a Predicate to the App Delegate

Add a Predicate Editor to the Search Window

Configuring the Predicate Editor

Saving a Predicate

In Conclusion

Chapter 10 Windows and Menus and Sheets

NSWindow and NSPanel

Handling Input

To Use a Panel, or Not to Use a Panel

Window Attributes

Standard System Panels

The Color Panel

The Font Panel

A Controller With a Nib of Its Own

Loading a Nib With NSWindowController

Subclassing NSWindowController

Modal Windows

The NSAlert Functions

Open Panels and Save Panels

System Menus

Standard Application Menu Items

Your Own Menus

Enabling/Disabling With Bindings

Enabling/Disabling With First Responder

Sheets

Wrap-up

Chapter 11 Document-Based Applications

Creating the ColorMix Application

Examining the Default Nib Files

Defining the Model

Setting Two Colors

The Simplest of GUIs

Creating a Default ColorSet

Settling on a File Format

Adding Color

The ColorBlendView Class

Adding Blended Colors to the GUI

Adding Some Background Bling

About Undo and Redo

The Undo Stack

In Conclusion

Chapter 12 Exceptions, Signals, Errors, and Debugging

Exception Handling

Catching Exceptions

The Limited Role of Exceptions in Cocoa

Create a Test-bed

NSInvalidArgumentException

NSRangeException

And the Rest

Worse than Exceptions: Death by Signal

NSError

Domains and Codes

Realizing You Have an Error

Presenting an Error

In Conclusion

Chapter 13 Drawing in Cocoa

Fundamentals

The View Coordinate System

Frame Rectangle vs. Bounds Rectangle

Rects, Points, and Sizes

Path Basics

Creating an NSView Subclass

Some C Structures

The Basic Drawing Method, drawRect

Graphics States

Path Helpers

Colors and the Graphics Context

Beyond Color

Manual Path Construction

Pushing Boundaries

LOLmaker

First Steps to LOL

LOLView

Drawing a Bitmap

Let It Scroll

Drawing Text

Printing Basics

Wrapping Up

Chapter 14 Advanced Drawing Topics

Editing a Curve

Preparations

Bezier Plumbing

Drawing a Curve

Watching the Mouse

A Little Polish

Core Animation: A Primer

Core Animation Basics

Implicit Animations

Explicit Animations

Grouping Animations

What Have We Done?

Chapter 15 Working with Files

Implicit File Access

High-level File Operations

What About That File: The Code

What About That File: The GUI

Filing It All Away

Chapter 16 Concurrency

SlowWorker

Threading Basics

Units of Work

Operation Queues

Vitalizing SlowWorker

Extending NSObject

Demanding the Main Thread

GCD: Low-Level Queuing

Becoming a Blockhead

Improving SlowWorker a Second Time

Don’t Forget That Main Thread

Concurrent Blocks

Another Option: NSBlockOperation

A Little Concurrency Goes a Long Way

Chapter 17 Future Paths

More Cocoa-isms

Notifications

Blocks

Enumeration

Observing Notifications Using Blocks

Filtering

Cocoa in a Foreign Language

PyObjC

MacRuby

Nu

JavaScript

F-Script

Ported Cocoa

Cocoa Touch

GNUstep and Cocotron

Cappuccino/Objective-J

Here at the End of All Things

Index