Feb 16 2017
This link points to a series of blogposts on TDD (test-driven design) which explains the process very clearly, with a follow-along example. I have reservations about the process, but this is a good place to start if you’re interested.
Jan 31 2017
I’ve just discovered an unwelcome difference between func tableViewSelectionDidChange(_ notification: Notification) and func outlineViewSelectionDidChange(_ notification: Notification) (NSOutlineView inherits from NSTableView, and the protocols share a lot of similarities). When there is no valid selection in an NSOutlineView, outlineviewSelectionDidChange fires, and outlineView.selectedRow is -1. When there is no valid selection in an NSTableView, tableViewSelectionDidChange does not […]
Jan 15 2017
Xcode 8, macOS 10.12, Swift 3.0 In Part 1 of this tutorial, we created an outlineView that, thanks to a SourceListItem protocol, was indefinitely flexible: you can have different classes on several levels, or indefinite levels (though it is probably wise to limit this programatically so you don’t nest too deep. It all depends on […]
Jan 15 2017
Swift 3, macOS 10.12 class Food { var name: String = “” init(name: String){ self.name = name } } let chocolate = Food(name: “Chocolate”) let spinach = Food(name: “Spinach”) let greenTea = Food(name: “Green Tea”) let favouriteThings = [greenTea, chocolate, greenTea, spinach, greenTea] If your element conforms to the equatable protocol or inherits from NSObject, […]
Jan 12 2017
macOS 10.12, Xcode 8.0, Swift 3 Storyboard segues make it exceedingly easy to create popovers, but sometimes you want to customise your popovers a bit more, for instance make windows detachable. When building interfaces the old-fashioned way with xib files or in code, you would use the NSPopoverDelegate protocol and wire things up appropriately. Storyboards […]
Jan 10 2017
I have finally made the switch to using Sierra as my main OS, so from this point onwards, all code will be linked to the macOS 10.12 SDK. Of the three options – supporting legacy software, and risking that advice does not work on the current system, keeping two (or more) versions of code updated […]
Jan 10 2017
OSX 10.12, Xcode 8.0 I’m not entirely certain under which circumstances this is useful, but [code language=”plain”]class invisibleWindowController: NSWindowController { override func windowDidLoad() { super.windowDidLoad() self.window?.isOpaque = false self.window?.backgroundColor = NSColor.clear } }[/code] is a thing of beauty. If the view in the window’s contentViewController overrides override func draw(_ dirtyRect: NSRect), the effect is […]
Jan 8 2017
Credit for extending Selector goes entirely to Andyy Hope (@AndyyHope) who posted this article on Medium: He looks at the problem of Swift selector syntax being somewhat unwieldy, and turns it into [code language=”plain”]fileprivate extension Selector { static let buttonTapped = #selector(ViewController.buttonTapped(_:)) }[/code] Thanks to fileprivate, you don’t get namespacing conflicts. Awesome. So I […]
Jan 5 2017
In the zoom example app, to make life easier for me, I went for a cyclical zoom: 2x magnification, 3x magnification, 1x magnification. When Apple first announced Swift, I liked many things about it, but the thing that made me swoon was enums. Swift enums are wonderful tools to shape your application flow. Here, we […]
Feb 21 2017
From the ‘don’t try this at home’ files
Source hidden to protect the guilty (who otherwise write very good code, but this jumped out) let urls = FileManager.default.urls(for: .libraryDirectory, in: .userDomainMask) print(urls[urls.count-1] as NSURL) For the searchMask .libraryDirectory, this function always returns an array containing a single URL, [file:///Users/username/Library/] so urls[urls.count-1] will give you urls[0], but it’s not clear from the code that […]
By Extelligent Cocoa • Design Patterns, Teaching Programming •