I've started programming on Mac OS X in Objective-C and decided to create a little card game. At first I create a command line version. If everything works fine I would like to implement a GUI: Nothing big, just a green window with cards which can be dragged and dropped.
Since I don't have any idea about how to do this: What can I use to implement my card game GUI?
Since Objective-C and Cocoa looks like a "bundle" on Mac OS X, is it possible to use Cocoa for this (and how)? If not, what else should I use or is there already sth. like this?
Regards,
inno
Apple has some sample code here that could point you in the right direction.
This is a fine study in MVC.
Your Model (an active game, player and non-player characters, the cards in the game, etc.) will be entirely in Foundation, at least at first. You can add AppKit-dependent properties such as images later, and use the C preprocessor to conditionalize that code if you want to continue maintaining your command-line program.
Your Controllers will also generally be in pure Foundation. I say “Controllers” because you'll have one for both programs (owning the model, responding to user actions, and running the game—that is, dealing cards, enforcing the rules, etc.), one specifically for the command-line program (holding the readline/output loop), and at least one specifically for the GUI program (owning the game window).
In the GUI app, you'll write your Views with AppKit, of course. In the command-line app, you may want to make a View class, separate from the Controllers, to make it easy to radically change the output quickly (even at runtime, if you want to allow that). Of course, that View will not descend from NSView, and will use terminal output instead of graphical drawing.
I recommend keeping the command-line version of the program alive after you make the GUI version, at least for a little while. You'll know you're doing it right when you can maintain both working versions of the program without much fuss, and even find a bug in one version of the program and fix it in both.
Related
I'm trying to find a modern environment similar to what I found great about QBasic but making up for the flaws. The purpose of this is to code with my 6 year old son.
I'm looking for an IDE that uses a modern language, has the ability to draw graphics and play audio, and doesn't force the User to jump around much between coding and running their application.
In QBasic you had basically two modes: Edit and Run. There were no third party libraries required for creating graphics or generating Audio tones (that I remember). You never had more than one "window" opened at a time.
Is there a modern day equivalent IDE which uses a modern language that provides what I'm looking for?
I don't want him to have to jump around between various windows, try to wrap his mind around window toolkits, understand the command line, or use OOP just to get started. My end goal is to create simple graphical games with him -- not printing text out to the console.
(Preferably cross platform or useable on Mac OSX since that's what we have at the house. Preferably Python based since that's my language of choice.)
QBasic is a great option. You can purchase an old PC from a thrift store and run QBasic on it. There is the option of QB64 which can run on both Mac and Windows. Hope this is helpful.
I'd suggest QB64, almost 100% compatible with QBasic/QuickBasic but runs on Windows.
You could maybe try Small Basic, it aimed to recreate the ease-of-use and educational purposes of the old BASIC languages build into home computers from the 1980s
The Small Basic project was initiated following this article on Salon:
Why Johnny can’t code (David Brin, 2006)
Is it possible to write software on the mac that will launch other separate applications, tell them what to do, etc etc? What language would best suite doing this? (Assuming it's Mac specific).
I'm fairly new to Mac programming, though I have a strong background in iOS. I've seen multiple companies in the past write a script that will cross-compile source code, basically you run your app from the Terminal and it floats around your OS, grabbing what it needs to compile and spits out an Xcode, Eclipse and Unity-ready versions of your source code. I'm familiar with iOS, and how it crashes the second you try to use another apps resources. That is what leads me to the original question:
Is it possible to write software on the mac that will launch other separate applications, tell them what to do, etc etc? Specifically tasks like launch Safari, take a screenshot, launch disk utility, launch mail, email screenshot. I know that OS X allows you to play around a bit more than iOS, but the question is how much.
It's still rather up to what each app will let you do, rather than just being able to do anything, but take a look at OS X's scripting/automation abilities. Primarily this is accessed through AppleScript, but there's now a JavaScript frontend as well (new to Yosemite).
If you're looking at building a native application that takes advantage of other applications, the same scripting abilities can also be reached via the Scripting Bridge from Cocoa (Objective-C/Swift).
I have to port an iOS application to OS X. I have a little experience with iOS (although I didn't write the applications) and I would like have some suggests.
1) The application has some nice animations -- should I use Quartz to do them on OS X?
2) How can I change the View to have the same effect as the UINAvigationController on OSX? I searched for this component in the Object Library inside Interface Builder but I didn't find it.
This is liable to be quite an involved process, as (for example) none of the UIKit classes (currently) exist on Mac OS X.
As such, it's likely that you'll only be able to meaningfully retain the model level classes and that a substantial amount of the remaining code may need to be re-written.
My suggestion would be that you thoroughly prepare checklist that contains all tasks. It is not that simple as just looking for equivalent classes in Application Kit to UIKit classes.
it also depends on how app is written. If it has followed MVC properly, then complete files of business logic can be taken without any problems. If not, you will more or less write your new mac app from the scratch.
Yes, Core Animation is always a way to go in this cases, but it may happen that you'll encounter a lot of work because of possible different dimensions.
UINavigationController is something that doesn't exist on "normal" desktop interfaces. The closest equivalents are tab menus/tab sheets and you know how different they are.
If I were you, I would focus on binging content on the Mac, forget about interface concepts from iOS and rather make new interface concepts on the Mac that are compliant with Apple guidelines.
I'm trying to re-write an old image-viewing plugin for the mac. The old version uses QuickDraw (I said it was old) and resources (really really old) and so it doesn't work in Firefox 3.6 (which is why I'm re-writing it)
I know some Objective C, and so I figure I'm going co re-write this in that using new-fangled Mac routines and nibs, etc. However, I don't know how to start. I've got the BasicPlugin example that comes with mozilla source, so I know how to create a plugin with entrypoints, etc. However, I don't know how to create the nib, and how to interface Obj-C with the entrypoints, etc.
Does anyone know of a more advanced sample for mac than BasicPlugin.bundle? (Preferably simple enough that I can just look at it and understand it...)
thanks.
Sadly i don't really know of any good "intermediate" example. However, integrating Obj-C isn't that difficult. Thus, following is a short overview of what needs to be done.
You can use Obj-C and C/C++-sources in the same project, its just recommendable to keep them seperated to some extent. This can for example be done by letting the source file with the entry-points and other NPAPI-interfacing stay plain C or C++ files and e.g. forward calls into the plugin from there.
Opaque pointers help to keep a clean seperation, see e.g. here.
The main changes to your plugin include switching to different drawing and event models. These have to be negotiated in NPP_New(), here is an example for the drawing model. When using Cocoa and to support 64bit enviroments, you need to use the Cocoa event model.
To draw UI elements you should be able to use a NSGraphicsContext from the CGContextRef and then draw an NSView in the context. See also the details provided in this post and its follow-ups.
I would prefer to create my interfaces programatically. Seems as if all the docs on Apple Developer assume you're using Interface Builder. Is it possible to create these interfaces programatically, and if so where do I start learning about how to do this
I thought the relevant document for this, if possible would be in this section: http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/Cocoa/idxUserExperience-date.html
I like the question, and I'd also like to know of resources for going IB-less. Usefulness (the "why") is limited only by imagination. Off the top of my head, here are some possible reasons to program UIs explicitly:
Implementing a better Interface Builder.
Programming dynamic UIs, i.e., ones whose structure is not knowable statically (at compile/xcode time).
Implementing the Cocoa back-end of a cross-platform library or language for UIs.
There is a series of blog posts on working without a nib and a recent description by Michael Mucha on cocoa-dev.
I would prefer to create my interfaces programatically.
Why? Interface Builder is easier and faster. You can't write a typo by drag and drop, and you don't get those oh-so-handy Aqua guides when you're typing rectangles by hand.
Don't fight it. Interface Builder is your friend. Let it help you.
If you insist on wasting your own time and energy by writing your UI in code:
Not document-based (generally library-based, like Mail, iTunes, iPhoto): Create a subclass of NSObject, instantiate it, and make it the application's delegate, and in the delegate's applicationDidFinishLaunching: method, create a window, populate it with views, and order it front.
Document-based (like TextEdit, Preview, QuickTime Player): In the makeWindowControllers method in your subclass of NSDocument, create your windows (and populate them with views) and create window controllers for them, making sure to send yourself addWindowController: for each window controller.
As a completely blind developer I can say that IB is not compatible with VoiceOver (the built-in screen-reader on OS X).
This means that without access to robust documentation on using Cocoa without IB I cannot develop apps for OS X / iPhone in Cocoa, which means I (ironically) cannot easily develop apps that are accessible to the blind (and all others) on OS X / iOS.
My current solution, which I would prefer not to use, is Java + SWT, of course this works for OS X, not so much for iOS.
In fact IB becomes totally unusefull when you start to write your own UI classes. Let say that you create your own button that use an skin system based on a plist. Or you create an dinamic toolbar that load and unload items based on user selection.
IB doesn't accept custom UI elements, so more complex UI can't use him. And YES you will want to do more complex things that the UIKit gives you.
Though this is quiet a bit old...
I tried many times to do everything only with programmatically. This is hard, but possible.
Update:
I posted another question for this specific issue: View-based NSOutlineView without NIB?, and now
I believe everything can be done in programmatical way, but it's incredibly hard without consulting from Apple engineers due to lack of information or examples.
Below argument might be off-topic, but I like to note why I strongly prefer programmatically way.
I also prefer programmatic way. Because
Static layout tool cannot handle anything dynamic.
Reproducing same UI state across multiple NIBs is hard. Everything is implicit or hidden. You need to visit all the panels to find parameters. This kind of job is very easy to make mistake - mistake friendly.
Managing consistent state is hard. Because reproducing same look is hard.
Automation impossible. You cannot make auto-generated input form.
Parameter indirection - such as variable element size chosen by user - is not possible.
Aiming small point is a lot harder than hitting finger sized keys at fixed location - funny that this is serious usability issue for developers!
IB sometimes screws. Which means it's compilable, and still working, but when I open the source, it looks broken and extra editing becomes impossible. (you may not experienced this yet, but if XIB file goes complex, this must happen)
It's image based serialization. The concept is good. But the problem is image-base only. IB doesn't keep the source code for clean boot by replaying the source code. Clean boot is very important to guarantee specific running state. Also, we cannot fix the bugs in source-code. Bug s just will be stacked infinitely. This is core reason why we cannot reproduce the equal(not similar looking) UI state in IB.
Of course these stuffs can be solved by post-processing NIB UI, but if we have to configure everything again, there's no reason to use IB at first.
With text code, it's easy to reproducing the same state - just copy the code. Also easy to inspecting and fixing wrong part - because we have full control. But in IB, we have no control on hard-core details.
IB can't be ultimate solution. It's like a Photoshop, but even Photoshop offers text-based scripting facility. GUI is a moving program, and not a static image or graphic. An IB approach is completely wrong even for visual editing of GUI. If you're one of the Apple folks reading this, I beg you to remove whole dependency to IB completely ASAP.