Re: Initializing the menubar

FROM : Eric Schlegel
DATE : Sun Nov 04 17:25:36 2007

On Nov 3, 2007, at 5:15 PM, Robert Nikander wrote:

> Okay... I've got a menu to show up, but the behavior seems to depend 
> on the location of the executable file, which I don't understand.
>
> If I put the code below in a file called "cocoa.m" and compile it 
> from the command line with:
>
>  gcc -o cocoa cocoa.m -framework Cocoa
>
> and I run it like this:
>
>  ./cocoa
>
> then no menu shows up.  But if I copy the binary into a bundle 
> directory, like this:
>
>  cp cocoa CocoaTest.app/Contents/MacOS/CocoaTest
>
> and run that same binary, at the different location:
>
>  ./CocoaTest.app/Contents/MacOS/CocoaTest
>
> then the menu bar shows up.
>
> Why the difference?  Does a cocoa binary have to run from within a 
> bundle directory?


mach-o binaries on Mac OS X (whether they're Carbon or Cocoa) must be 
run from within a bundle in order to get the normal GUI interface and 
process management behavior. That includes being able to click on the 
app's windows to make it active and get a menubar.

It's recommended to just use a bundle, but if you really want to use a 
flat file, you can call TransformProcessType (HIServices/Processes.h) 
from main() to make the app foreground-capable.

-eric