The Java Perspective: Cocoa's Interface Builder
- Oct 21, 2005
- Introduction to Interface Builder
- Java Code Example
- Objective-C Code Example
- Conclusion
- Basic Animations with Core Animation
- Marcus Zarra and Matt Long on Core Animation
- Introduction to Migration in Apple's Core Data
- A Look at Apple's Core Animation
- The State of Java Development on OS X
- Packaging Your Application for OS X
- Tiger vs. Leopard: Which Should You Develop For?
- Building on Apple Sync Services
- Getting in Sync with OS X
- Syncing Your Data the Cocoa Way
- Controlling Both Ends of the Communications Channel: From Cocoa to Servlets
- Cocoa: Working with XML
- Java EJB 3.0: A Hibernate Clone?
- Document Level Parameters Using Core Data: A Guide for Cocoa Developers
- Tips for J2EE Development
- The Cross-Platform Java GUI: Designing Code for More Than One Operating System
- Avoiding Java Exception Abuse
- Java Perspective: Advanced Core Data
- Java Perspective: Cocoa-Java Bridge
- Java Perspective: Core Data and the Mac OS X Developer
- Java Perspective: Key-Value Protocols, Behind the Magic of Mac OS X Development
- Java Perspective: Cocoa Subclasses and Delegates
- The Java Perspective: Cocoa's Interface Builder
- Maven: Handling Multiprojects
- Java, Maven, and Your Web Development Project
- Ant User, Let Me Introduce Maven
- Using JAAS Authentication with JBoss
- Building a Custom JBoss Login Module
- Testing Java Enterprise Applications with Cactus
- Ant: Building a Better Build File
- XDoclet: Entity Bean Relationships
- The Java Developers' Introduction to XDoclet
- An Introduction to Cactus
- Using Multiple Databases with JBoss
- JBoss Application Configuration Breakdown
- Sortable Swing JTable
- Building a Professional Swing JTable
- Creating a Custom Java Swing Tablemodel
- Adding Workflow Control to Your Java Applications
- The Mac Developer Network
- Steve Scott of Late Night Cocoa has started a new podcast targeted specifically at Macintosh Developers. One of the first episodes on this podcast is a roundtable of developers with several very well known developers starting with Daniel Jalkut, Uli Kusterer and Fraser Spiers along with myself.
- Once more unto the [Beta Cycle], dear friends, once more
- Today marks the first semi-public release of iWeb Buddy, a new application that I have been developing for the past few months. Unlike seSales or applications developed as a consultant, this development cycle has been a blur of activity.
- Apple -- You Did Me A Disservice
- Today is the day that most Mac users have been looking forward to for over a year. Ever since Steve Jobs got up on stage last August and showed us Leopard for the first time. Ever since that first peak almost all Mac users and I dare say ALL Mac developers have been looking forward to this release. Unfortunately, today is also a day that Mac developers are going to be scrambling like rats on a burning ship. This is because Apple decide to thumb their nose at us.
- Further development of Bullfrog 2 for OS X
- Things are starting to speed up on the development of Bullfrog 2 previously mentioned here. In our continuing disclosure about the development process, Jon Trainer has written a very informative article on how the actors are configured.
- Starting over is hard to do
- I mentioned before that I am working with Jon Trainer of Outer Level to write Bullfrog 2 for OS X. This development effort will be targeted at the as of yet unreleased OS X 10.5 Leopard. We also promised to blog about the development as it moved forward. Unfortunately not everything has been roses.
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Let me start off by saying that I am rather "hard-core" when it comes to Java GUI development. I am a strong believer in the Swing/JFC API and have written several articles on the subject. I write all my Swing GUI code by hand. I do not use any WYSIWYG tools in my Swing development, and I enjoy using GridBagLayout (arguably the hardest layout manager out there).
Until recently, I did all of my development using vim and only recently switched over to using Intellij's IDEA. That switch was mainly due to my aging memory and inability to keep 100 percent of the methods and packages straight in my head. However, even using that IDE, I still avoid graphical Swing development tools like the plague because they produce slow and bloated code and because these tools do not write code the same way that I do (so they produce code that is difficult to maintain).
Introduction to Interface Builder
When I first approached Cocoa development, I started by walking through the tutorials provided by Apple on its developer website and worked with every tutorial in Aaron Hillegass' excellent book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. I admit to some trepidation when I approached Interface Builder. All the tutorials used it—I checked. I looked for programmatic ways to build the GUIs in the tutorials and I could not find them. (I eventually found them, but that's another story.)
So with my dislike of WYSIWYG tools in hand, I approached Interface Builder and started working through the tutorials. My first tutorial was trivial: It involved a simple GUI with one window, two buttons, and a label. After I completed the tutorial I looked back at it with wonder.
In that small project I learned the following:
- Interface Builder is not a code generator.
- Interface Builder is an integral part of the development process on Cocoa.
- You can build Cocoa projects without Interface Builder, but it would be just plain silly.
Interface Builder approaches GUI design in a way that is quite foreign to a Java developer. It took quite awhile for me to properly grok it. Once I did, I realized that its solution made perfect sense and I enjoyed using it.
Interface Builder works by creating a real instance of the GUI. When you drag and drop a button onto a window in Interface Builder, the underlying code actually instantiates that button and places it on the GUI. When you are done with a GUI and save it, the GUI is serialized to disk. When your application starts up, the GUI's nib file is de-serialized back into memory, which produces faster startup times because the objects do not need to be initialized, nor do any of the connections need to be established.
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