[eyadams]

Here's the deal. When you use IB to create a java class with outlets and actions, the actions are implemented as methods (which is fine) and the outlets are implemented as package-scope instance variables. Instance variables which somehow magically get a reference to the interface elements defined in the nib file.

That seems to me to be kind of ugly. It seems to me that the Java way of doing things would be to make the outlets accessor methods. I've tried doing just that, but for can't quite get it to work.

Am I out on a limb here? Cocoa and Java are really cool, but the more I dig into it the more I feel like Java is the poor second cousin in Cocoa development. This seems to me like the sort of thing that's fine in Objective C (I don't know if it is or not; I'm just saying) but in Java it just stinks.

[IamBob]

I feel the same way. This outlet thing isn't quite right. The oulets should be initialized in the constructor with some form of magic method or something...anything is better than having it just work.

on another note: any idea how to keep the focus in a NSTextField?

[eyadams]

Well, I posted more or less the same question to comp.sys.mac.programmer.help, and was eventually told that you can use normal accessors. So, instead of

> NSTextfield foo;

You can have

> public void setFoo(NSTextfield t) { /* whatever you want */ }

The only weirdness is with the case. In IB (and the generated class) you define your outlet with the first letter lower case; but after the word "set" in the accessor it has to be initial capped.

[IamBob]

I'll give that a try since it makes more sense...thanks.