Re: Bypassing Interface Builder

FROM : colo
DATE : Wed May 14 19:37:09 2008

I second that to a T. Reading over all the messages now.


On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Boyd Collier
<<email_removed>> wrote:
> Andy,
>
> Just wanted to congratulate you for your exceptionally clear and succinct
> summary.  If I'd had it when I first started using Interface Builder, it
> would have saved me a lot of head scratching (and occasional head-banging).
>
> Boyd
>
>
>
> On May 14, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Andy Lee wrote:
>

>> On May 14, 2008, at 11:35 AM, colo wrote:

>>>
>>> Hmmm. The letting it create the files in the nib file sounds fine for
>>> me. But what about the linking and configuring? It's just all
>>> reflected in code correct? The dragging a pipe to one object to the
>>> other that just all shows up in the .m right?

>>
>> No.  Nothing you do in Interface Builder modifies a .m.
>>
>> A nib file contains descriptions of a set of objects:
>>
>> (1a) what class each object is an instance of,
>> (1b) values for each object's attributes, and
>> (1c) how the objects connect to each other (through instance variables
>> called outlets).
>>
>> When you edit a nib file in IB, you're specifying:
>>
>> (2a) what objects should be in the nib (by dragging them from a palette
>> that lists the classes you want),
>> (2b) what values their attributes should have (by entering values in an
>> inspector), and
>> (2c) how they connect to each other (by control-dragging between them and
>> selecting which outlet of the from-object you want the to-object to be).
>>
>> When your application *loads* a nib, it:
>>
>> (3a) instantiates the objects,
>> (3b) sets their attributes, and
>> (3c) connects them both to each other and to certain things in your
>> application (in particular, File's Owner, which you should definitely
>> understand).
>>
>> As others have explained, IB does not generate code to do (3a), (3b), and
>> (3c).  That's all taken care of by the Cocoa framework code that loads the
>> nib file.
>>
>> There *is* a connection between your code and your nib, but it's in the
>> other direction.  If you edit the outlets in the .h file for one of your
>> classes (outlets are designated with the IBOutlet keyword), the nib file
>> will update its understanding of the structure of that class.
>>
>> The "behind the scenes" of (3a), (3b), and (3c) are documented and worth
>> understanding; they touch on topics including init methods, KVC, and the
>> responder chain respectively.  To be honest I can't recite all the details
>> offhand (like the exact rules for which init method gets called), but I'm
>> aware of the situations in which I should refer to the documentation.
>>
>> --Andy
>>
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>
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