How to get started with Cocoa application development? - objective-c

I'm a Java guy who is familiar with Swing programming and recently just started out with iPhone programming. Boy the learning curve was steep and now I would like to start Cocoa development for desktop apps.
I've been reading on articles and considering buying few cocoa book to advance my learning, still I feel I don't fully get it yet. I started about 3 months back and pretty comfortable with XCode and Objective-C but developing cocoa for desktop apps looks like a different game from iPhone development.
My questions are:
Suitable book to pick up and learn from.
What blogs I should follow?
Any code example I should look at to learn from.
I've been looking at Adium src and considering buying Cocoa Programming 3rd but the book looks like bunch of stuff I already kinda know.

Suitable book to pick up and learn from.
Aaron Hillegass - Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
What blogs I should follow?
Scott Stevenson
Wil Shipley
Cocoa is my girlfriend
Any code example I should look at to learn from.
Apple's Currency Converter tutorial
Apple's Currency Converter tutorial with cocoa bindings
EDIT: There is already a comprehensive list here on SO:
Good ways to Learn Cocoa?

Our CocoaHeads group has a really large list of resources:
http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/resources
If you're looking for books, check out: http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/resources/book
Or blogs: http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/resources/blog
Or tutorials: http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/resources/tutorial
Or sample code: http://cocoaheads.byu.edu/resources/sample-code
etc

Related

General tutorial on OS X audio programming

I would like to do some fairly simple audio programming on OS X (using Lion and Xcode 4.3) -- synthesizing tones with given frequencies, mainly. Trouble is, Apple's documentation on the subject is way too high-level for my current knowledge of the subject. I've searched for weeks now for something that will get me started, to no avail.
Does anyone know of some Core Audio basic tutorial, or even some sample code, that will help me do fairly simple Core Audio tasks so that I can progress to understanding the Apple documentation?
I would suggest the book Learning Core Audio There is also sample code from the book at that site.
If you are looking to synthesize audio fairly easy, you are going to want to use a 3rd party library. Two possible solutions are FMOD and SuperCollider.
The pros and cons between the two are really that supercollider runs as a server that you can connect from app as a client and FMOD is compiled into an app and uses core audio to synthesize the sound. FMOD is clearly the choice if you are planning on distributing this app. SuperCollider also has it's own language that you'd have to learn the basics of to start tailoring your sounds synthesis. Here are some links:
FMOD:
FMOD Downloads (Comes with a bunch of sample code)
Super Collider:
SC Server Download
Sine Wave Generator Sample App
Great source of SC scripts and examples

Multi-Media Book App for iPad - Obj-C or Corona Or Cocos2D?

I am planning to build a BOOK APP (with text, images, animation, sound etc) for iPad. I started learning Obj-C But I came to know about frameworks like Corona & Cocos2D and Corona boasts to be promising for my scenario. I have no working experience with any of these but am willing to learn. Which one is better to start with for building a multi-media book app? XCode & Obj-C OR Corona OR Cocos2D and how would would be the learning curve?
I can't speak for Corona, but Cocos2D is just an Obj-C library, so you'll still have to know a bit of Obj-C to get it going.
That said, I started with just Objective-C, then found Cocos2D which greatly improved my development speed, as all the groundwork is already implemented. Cocos2D has a much more managable learning curve than doing it all from scratch, and there are a number of great resources available (cocos2d forums, this blog, etc).
A quick Google search showed me that Corona has costs associated with it for distribution - cocos2d does not.
I'd have to say Corona SDK is perfect for making a book app as you described. The basis for this claim is that there have been iPad eBooks created using Corona which have made the top charts on the app store (See: http://blog.anscamobile.com/2010/11/rabbit-and-turtle-race-to-1-in-app-store-ebooks/ for a quick example).
Also, Chronicle Books (San Francisco based book publisher) has used Corona SDK to produce an eBook for the Nook platform:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/animal-show-chronicle-books/1100618669
And several others I can't think of off the top of my head.
The reason why Corona is great is because books are about getting images, text, and interactivity on the screen, and with Corona, you can do each one of those things in just a few lines of code or less!
Also, with the full-power of OpenGL, you have near limitless possibilities when it comes to adding as much--or as little--interactivity to your book as you want. With Corona, you really do get to focus on the logic behind your book app, rather than all the technical details which are handled transparently for you in the background.
For more information on eBook and Corona, visit this page:
http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/switch/e-book-developers/

Objective-c and C reference help

hey guys im new to this site and new to the IOS development. i have prior programing experience mainly VB.net and some basic C, what i need is a really good quick access reference for everything obj-c.
any kind of help is greatly appreciated!
Thank You,
msquared86
What exactly do you want to learn about? If it's just the basics of how to use Objective-C and Cocoa, try Apple's Introduction to the Objective-C Programming Language.
For everything Objective-C? http://developer.apple.com contains gigabytes of documentation about Objective-C, the Cocoa frameworks, and the secondary Objective-C-based frameworks on Apple's operating systems.
If it is a reference you are after, everything you need is in the Xcode/SDK download. The developer documentation menu item under Help provides access. However, I personally don't think the search is very good. If you are on line, you can Google developer.apple.com for the same docs. For example the search term:
site:developer.apple.com ios nsstring
will take you to the class reference for NSString.
Up and Running: Objective-C is what I used to cut my teeth on. Great book to get you started. All those Beginning iPhone books are worthless for teaching you Objective-C. Get a real Objective-C book and then start reading those other books. For $5 you can purchase the iOS ebook. Best $5 I have ever spent.

What is a good Mac objective-c 2D game engine?

Now that Apple is going to release the Mac App Store there is bound to be lots of games. I'm curious, in your opinion, what is a good Mac 2D game engine to use for game development that has an objective-c interface?
Thanks
Cocos2D which I understand is popular for the iPhone also now has Mac support.
Disclaimer: I haven't tried it.
Currently the most widely popular is Cocos2D, although I would suggest to go with either Kobold2D (free) or KoboldTouch (subscription, in active development).
You can find some information about Cocos2D here:
http://macoun.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/6GS10.zip
Those are the materials from this year's Macoun' session on Cocos2D. It has some slides (german only, sorry) as well as some links and the sources. The slides have some examples. Might help to get you startet.
Cheers,
Marcus
"Love" is an epic game engine http://love2d.org/
Although it's not objective-c (it's lua)
At the time of writing i haven't tried it yet.

Tips for transitioning from Visual Basic to Xcode

I've been programming in VB.net for a while now, and I finally got access to a mac to make ipod apps. What are some useful sites, videos, etc. that could help me get used to Objective C and the Xcode IDE? I've stumbled upon the samples on the apple dev site, but none of them really give good examples which I could learn the syntax of the language from.
Thanks for the help, Objective C is really a big change from VB.net!
Here are some helpful starter references from the Apple site, first for Objective-C itself, then for the Cocoa frameworks.
Learning Objective-C: A Primer
Cocoa Fundamentals Guide
There are also "getting started" videos available from http://developer.apple.com/iphone (you have to register as a developer to get access, but that's free)
You might want to take a look at MonoTouch if you like working with .Net. As far as I'm aware, it only works with C#, but it will let you use the .NET api to program for the iPhone. Might be worth looking into if you don't want to learn Objective C.