[kman42]

I've been trying to figure out the NSController classes with the sparse documentation provided by Apple and I have basically hit a wall.

How do you get access to the array of objects NSArrayController creates? For instance, I have a table view that I have hooked up to an NSArrayController. I put in the Object Class Name for the object I want controlled and it dutifully creates an array of these objects that then interact beautifully with my table view. My question is how do I get programmatic access to this array to either add another instance to it (say via drag and drop) or, most puzzling, to save it?

Rather than using an NSArrayController should I use an NSObjectController and set the Content to an array that I set up programmatically in my own controller class?

I'm a little confused about how to integrate these into apps a bit more complicated than the currency converter examples provided by Apple, so ANY advice would be great.

Also, now that Panther has shipped can the rest of us get access to the WWDC sessions? I noticed that there were a few related to this topic.

kman

[kman42]

So in IB we have instances of these Controllers, but I don't know how to interact with them from one of my own custom classes. Do we refer to them as IBOutlets?

kman

[kman42]

Originally posted by kman42:
So in IB we have instances of these Controllers, but I don't know how to interact with them from one of my own custom classes. Do we refer to them as IBOutlets?

kman

Okay, answered my own question. You do refer to it as an IBOutlet and you make a connection to it in IB and then just deal with it as any other instantiated class. Why did this seem so unintuitive? Hmm...

kman

[Mark Goebl]

I've just installed XCode and the NSArrayController looks really nice ;-))

I know I need to create an IBOutlet and write my Code to fill the Array:

For example:

public void InsertARow (Object sender) {
myArrayController.addObject ...

}

Could someone gives me some samplecode on how to add the following row:
"123"; "Test"


And does anybody know how I can initialize the NSArrayController with my Array at startup?


Thanks in advance

Mark

[DaveGee]

From my understanding of them... You shouldn't *add* items to an NSArrayController. Instead you should BIND (you can do this directly inside IB) an NSArrayController to an NSArray that already exists in your Application.

In short, I think of an ArrayController as a 'middleman' that is knows about both the DATA (in this case an NSArray that holds the values) as well as the controls (in say a window).

So for example:

Imagine an NSTableView with 5 columns that are bound to an NSArrayController which in turn is bound to an Array of dictionarys (defined in the source code of the app).

So if the NSTableView gets displayed it asks the NSArrayController 'give me the data' then the NSArrayController in turn looks to the Array itself for the data.

Again this is just my understanding of the way things work... I'm pretty sure other 'stuff' is going on too but I hope this helps a little (and is mostly right).

Dave