Building Cocoa Applications A Step-by-Step Guide

Name: Building Cocoa Applications A Step-by-Step Guide
Price: 4.65 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780596002350

ISBN-10: 0596002351

ISBN-13: 9780596002350

Edition: 2002

Authors: Simson Garfinkel, Michael K. Mahoney

List price: $64.99

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Cocoa is an object-oriented development environment available in Apple's Mac OS X environment. Mac OS X, a unified operating system and graphical operating environment, is the fastest growing Unix variant on the market today. Hard-core Unix programmers, developers who cut their teeth on classic Mac operating systems, and developers who cherished NeXTSTEP, the decade-old system on which today's Cocoa is based -- all are flocking to Cocoa, and they need a lot more practical information than is currently available from Apple. There is a lot to learn. "Building Cocoa Applications is an ideal book for serious developers who want to write programs for the Mac OS X using Cocoa. It's a… no-nonsense, hands-on text that's filled with examples -- not only simple and self-contained examples of individual Cocoa features, but extended examples of complete applications with enough sophistication and complexity that readers can put them to immediate use in their own environments. "Building Cocoa Applications takes a step-by-step approach to teaching developers how to build real graphics applications using Cocoa. By showing the basics of an application in one chapter and then layering additional functionality onto that application in subsequent chapters, the book keeps readers interested and motivated. Readers will see immediate results, and then go on to build onto what they've already achieved. The book is divided into four major parts: Part I introduces the Mac OS X graphical user interface (Aqua) from a developer's point of view, Cocoa developer tools (such as the Interface Builder, Project Builder, and gdb debugger), object-oriented concepts, the Objective-C language in whichCocoa is written, and the basics of Cocoa programming itself. Part II focuses on building the first complete application, Calculator, a simple four-function calculator. The chapters in this part of the book extend the application, piece by piece, by introducing such features as nibs, icons, delegation, resizing, events, and responders. Part III focuses on building an application called MathPaper, which is similar to a word processor but which instead solves mathematical expressions the user supplies. The chapters in this part of the book extend MathPaper by developing both the front and back ends using a variety of Cocoa classes and methods. They introduce Cocoa'sdocument-based architecture, tasks, pipes, Rich Text format, handling document files, and using Quartz to draw in windows. Part IV focuses on building the GraphPaper application, a more complex multithreading application that graphs mathematical functions in multiple dimensions and that uses mouse-over capabilities to identify graph points. The chapters in this part of the book add more advanced Mac OS X features such as multithreading, color, mouse events, zoom buttons, pasteboards, services, preferences, and the defaults database. By the end of the book, readers who have built the applications as they have read will have a solid understanding of what it really means to develop complete and incrementally more complex Cocoa applications. The book comes with extensive source code available for download from the O'Reilly web site, along with an appendix listing additional resources for further study.

Book details

List price: $64.99
Copyright year: 2002
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date: 5/11/2002
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 648
Size: 7.00" wide x 9.50" long x 1.25" tall
Weight: 1.980
Language: English



Preface



Cocoa Overview



Understanding the Aqua Interface


What Makes Mac OS X So Special?


A Quick Look at the Mac OS X User Interface


Basic Principles of the Aqua Interface


The Mouse and Cursor


Window Types and Behavior


Menus and the Menu Bar


The Dock


Controls


The Finder


Configuring Your Desktop, Step by Step


Menu Guidelines and Keyboard Equivalents


Working with the Filesystem, Step by Step


Summary


Exercises


References



Tools for Developing Cocoa Applications


Developer Tools


Utilities


Working with the Terminal


Debugging Programs with gdb


User Interface Design


Summary


Exercises



Creating a Simple Application with Interface Builder


Getting Started with Interface Builder


Adding Objects to Your Application


Objects, Messages, and Targets


Summary


Exercise



An Objective-C Application Without Interface Builder


The Tiny.m Program


An Introduction to Objective-C


Tiny.m Revisited


Summary


Exercises


References



Calculator: Building a Simple Application



Building a Project: A Four-Function Calculator


Getting Started: Building the Calculator Project


Building the Calculator's User Interface


Building the Calculator's Controller Class


Customizing Buttons and Making Connections


Compiling and Running a Program


Compiler Error Messages


The enterDigit: Action Method


Adding the Four Calculator Functions


Adding the Unary Minus Function to the Controller Class


The Files in a Project


Summary


Exercises



Nibs and Icons


Customizing MainMenu.nib


Managing Multiple Nibs


Adding Icons to Applications


Changing Calculator's Application Icon


Cocoa's NSImage Class


Summary


Exercises


References



Delegation and Resizing


Handling Different Bases


Delegation


Disabling Buttons for BetterMultiradix Input


Resizing Windows Programmatically


Two Very Imporant Classes: NSWindow and NSView


Summary


Exercises



Events and Responders


Events and the NSResponder Chain


Events and the NSApplication Object


The Event Loop


Catching Keyboard Events for Our Calculator


Summary


Exercises


References



Darwin and the Window Server


Unix, Mach, and the Mac OS X Environment


The Window Server and Quartz


Seeing All the Processes


Summary


Exercises


References



MathPaper: A Multiple-Document, Multiprocess Application



MathPaper and Cocoa's Document-Based Architecture


The MathPaper Application


The Evaluator Back End


Cocoa's Document-Based Architecture


Building MathPaper's Front End


Summary


Exercises


References



Tasks, Pipes, and NSTextView


Processes, Pipes, and Resources


Making Evaluator a MathPaper Auxiliary Executable


MathDocument Class Modifications


Creating PaperController, a Subclass of NSWindowController


The NSScrollView and NSTextView Classes


PaperController Class Modifications


Summary


Exercises



Rich Text Format and NSText


Rich Text Format


Creating an RTF Class


Integrating Our RTF Class into MathPaper


Summary


Exercises



Saving, Loading, and Printing


Data Management with NSDocument


Saving to a File


Loading from a File


Marking a Document Window as Edited


Adding Printing Capability


Summary


Exercises



Drawing with Quartz


Animation in an About Panel


The Quartz Window Server


Implementing the About Panel in MathPaper


Quartz Graphics Data Types


Timers


Putting It All Together


Summary


Exercises


References



Drawing in a Rectangle: More Fun with Cocoa Views


The Advantages of NSView's drawRect: Method


BlackView: An NSView That Paints Itself Black


A Closer Look at the NSView Class


BarView: An NSView with a Scaled Coordinate System


PolygonView: A Non-Opaque NSView


Responding to Events in an NSView


Autosizing Multiple Views in a Window


Summary


Exercises



GraphPaper: A Multithreaded, Mouse-Tracking Application



GraphPaper: A Multithreaded Application with a Display List


GraphPaper's Design


Working with Multiple Threads


Building the GraphPaper Application


Extending the Display List


Summary


Exercises


References



Color


Colors and Color Objects


Adding Color to GraphPaper


Summary


Exercises



Tracking the Mouse


Tracking the Mouse


Adding Mouse Tracking to GraphPaper


Summary


Exercises


References



Zooming and Saving Graphics Files


Adding a Zoom Button to GraphPaper


Saving to PDF


Saving to TIFF


Creating an Accessory NSView


Summary


Exercises



Pasteboards, Services, Modal Sessions, and Drag-and-Drop


Cut, Copy, and Paste with the Pasteboard


Using the Pasteboard in GraphPaper


Services


Creating Your Own Service


Drag-and-Drop


Summary


Exercises



Preferences and Defaults


Preferences and the Defaults Database System


Adding Defaults to GraphPaper


Making the Preferences Panel Work with Defaults


Setting Up a Multi-View Panel


Summary


Exercises



Cocoa Resources


Index