Building a Setup Assistant

FROM : Christopher Keath
DATE : Sat Jun 28 23:15:50 2008

>
> For the life of me, I just don't know where to begin on this 
> seemingly simple project, which is basically my first Xcode project.
>
> Quite specifically, I can't seem to figure out how to setup the 
> 'Next' button that would step you thru each stage of the process. 
> All I want to do is collect some text based info that I will write 
> out to a plist. But this process will involve about 10 windows that 
> ask various questions, and later windows will need access to info 
> entered in earlier windows. KInd of like the registration apps that 
> launch after an application installs.
>
> I have read through Cocoa with Objective C (the O'Reilly book) but 
> there is nothing about having non-document based apps with more then 
> 1 window. I have looked thru the examples as well, but none seem to 
> follow this format.
>
> I'm especially having trouble with the fact that I am using XCode 3, 
> and it looks nothing like the examples in the book - for the life of 
> me I can't figure out where the Classes Menu went, and I can't find 
> the Instantiate command that will make the header files and so forth 
> in Xcode based on what I do in IB.
>
> So anyway -
> Do I want to try and do this with only 1 window object, and have 
> each stage simply load a new view? Or do I want a new nib for each 
> step?
> In either case, I have no idea where to begin. I can add my initial 
> text box that will hold my Welcome message, and I can add the 'Next' 
> button, all to the Window, but have no idea where to go from 
> there.... Do I need some kind of custom class for this? Where do I 
> overwrite the default latin text that is in my box? Can window have 
> multiple views that are mutually exclusive? or do I need to load a 
> new nib for each window? How do you load a new nib? How do you take 
> the old one off?
>
> Should I be trying to use core data for this? I messed with that for 
> a while but for the life of me could not figure out how to attach 
> the data objects I made in the Core Data part of XCode to fields in 
> IB.
>
> I can do the table view stuff from the book too, to get and write 
> the data I want for each window, but structurally, I'm not sure how 
> to setup a series of windows that would all have access to that 
> data, or even how to load the next window.
>
> I know it's a very basic question, but I would really appreciate the 
> help.
>
> THANKS!
>
> Chris