On 19 May 2008, at 20:58, John Love wrote:

I am having some basic problems getting an indeterminate NSProgressIndicator (INSPI) to spin. Since I have just recently started to learn XCODE and Cocoa, I began with "Learning Cocoa and Objective C". I have also printed out much of Apple's docs, e.g., on the INSPI. I just finished developing an app in AppleScript Studio, so I am very familiar with XCODE and IB. Plus, a long time ago, I delved into C++ ... so that helps ... and I have poured over the concepts of outlets and actions and how to connect everything in IB ... but something is just not working right. So, I decided to go from the beginning and describe everything to you so you can tell me where "I parked
my brain".

I have developed a multi-document Cocoa app whose nib contains the usual stuff plus a Window and an NSObject, "CalculationIndicatorController" (CIC), whose class has the same name. The Window has an INSPI, whose class is
CIC.

This all be a bit crazy. There's almost certainly NO need for you to subclass NSProgressIndicator ever, especially in this case.

Within IB, the CIC has one outlet = "itsWindow" and one action =
"spin:".  In general, I must be doing something right, because in each
window, via CMD-N, I have a Toolbar showing ... the INSPI is just giving me
fits for now.

// CIC.h looks like:

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

@interface CIC:NSProgressIndicator {
   IBOutlet NSWindow *itsWindow;
}

- (IBAction) spin:(NSWindow *)sender on:(BOOL)start;
@end

=====

// CIC.m looks like:

#import "CIC.h"

@implementation CIC

- (id) init {
   if (self = [super init]) {
       [self setUsesThreadedAnimation:YES];
   }

   return self;
}


- (void) awakeFromNib {
   itsWindow = [self window];
   [self spin:itsWindow on:TRUE];
}


- (IBAction) spin:(NSWindow *)sender on:(BOOL)start; {
   if (start)   [self startAnimation:sender];
   else         [self stopAnimation:sender];
}


Now ... back to IB:

1) When I control-drag from the INSPI (the "lock washer") in the window to the window's title bar, I select outlet = "itsWindow" .. so far, so good .. but when I control-drag from the CIC in the nib window to the window's title
bar, I see TWO outlets = "itsWindow" .. so confusion #1 ??

2) Now, there is clearly an Action labelled "IBAction" in the source code and there is an Action in the Class Actions pane of IB when I have selected the CIC in the nib window. As an aside, the Outlet appeared automatically once I placed the IBOutlet in the source code .. however, even though the IBAction was also in the source code, I had to manually add the Action =
"spin:" within IB .. so confusion #2 ??

You've used (IBAction) but the actual method itself is not a valid action message. Actions MUST take the form:

- (IBAction)doSomething:(id)sender

where sender is an object of some kind. You can even do this if you really wanted to but it's slightly pointless:

- (IBAction)doSomething:(MyClass *)sender

Either way it doesn't matter, because you don't need to be doing all this subclassing.


3) So, just like I did in Apple's Currency Converter Project (whose source for the control-drag was a Button), I control-drag from the window's title
bar to the INSPI (the "lock washer") in this window - based on the
assumption that the sender is the NSWindow (???). I expected to be greeted with having to select the Action = "spin:" .. but all I saw was the choice
of outlets = "delegate" and "initialFirstResponder".  The same thing
occurred when I control-drag from the window's title bar to the CIC in the nib window. Just for the record, I did select "initialFirstResponder" ..
but where is the Action selection = "spin:" .. confusion #3 ??

My MainDocument.m file has a *- (void)
windowControllerDidLoadNib:(NSWindowController*)aController* method which
sets up everything once the Window is showing.

Right, what you actually want to do is create an outlet in MainDocument.h along the lines of:

IBOutlet NSProgressIndicator *progressIndicator;

Then if your -windowControllerDidLoadNib: method, you can do something like:

[progressIndicator setUsesThreadedAnimation:YES];
[progressIndicator startAnimation:self];



But, *somewhere?,* I read that in the process of getting that Window to show, the - (void) awakeFromNib method of each and every NSView contained
within the Window
is called. Therefore, I called *[self spin:itsWindow on:TRUE];* within the
CIC's *awakeFromNib*.

I expected to see a rotating INSPI, or "lock washer" ... but not this trip.

Let me finish by asking one question: "Just where did I park my brain?"

Trying to manage the animation entirely from within your progress indicator subclass (the view layer) is poor design as the progress indicator itself is ill-equipped to know whether it should be animating. Instead, the whole point of the MVC paradigm (which Cocoa relies heavily upon) is to have a controller object (in this case MainDocument) tell it to start animating.

I also came originally from AppleScript studio and I have to admit it actually makes life harder as the two approaches are very different. Good luck!

Mike.

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