Peter McIntyre

Hands-on with Mac OS X, Xcode, and Objective-C.

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Sorry about the limited class notes for today – I have been working non-stop since Friday to clear the start-of-semester collection of registration-related requests from students. I finished late on Sunday, so effectively had no time to post notes. My plan is to back-fill these notes later this week.

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Topics for today

It’s our first session in a computer-lab room. Here’s what I have planned:

• Hands-on with Mac OS X
• Get familiar with Xcode, the developer tool
• Work with Objective-C and the Cocoa library of frameworks
• String-number conversions
• Introduction to collections – dictionary and array
• Introduction to iOS apps

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Hands-on with Mac OS X

Finder, file system, WORK DRIVE, navigation

Browser(s), downloads

Cmd+Spacebar to use “Spotlight” to find and open any program or document

Cmd+Tab to switch between running programs

Using the dock and mission control

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Get familiar with Xcode, the developer tool

From this course’s ‘Resources’ page…

• Xcode Basics Help – HTML
• Xcode Overview – HTML – PDF

Build Cmd+B, Run (with debugging) Cmd+R

Keyboard shortcuts (handout) – Cmd+0, Cmd+1, Option+Cmd+0

Show/hide debug console area – Shift+Cmd+Y

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Work with Objective-C and the Cocoa library of frameworks

In our first class, last Thursday, we rushed through the Objective-C introduction faster than I wanted to. Today, we’ll take our time, and make sure that you can get started writing a class, and then using it. 

Pure superset of C – use C when appropriate, Objective-C when necessary

Source code for a class is split over two files – interface .h (aka ‘header’), and implementation .m

When editing – toggle between .h and .m with this keyboard shortcut – Ctrl+Cmd+up-arrow

Compiler directives use the at sign – @

• @interface
• @implementation
• @end
• @property
• @ literal, for strings (and collection objects, later)

Classes contain (at least) these members

• private variables, declared in a { } code block
• declared properties – state/data for the class instance
• methods – instance or class – behaviour for the class

Declared properties for objects require memory management, e.g. (nonatomic, copy)

Method signature is dash (or plus), return type, name, with typed parameters

Become familiar with declarations, initialization, and use of

• variables
• properties
• methods

Use the NSLog statement to dump data to the debug console

• NSLog has printf-like formatting; %d for integers, %f for doubles and floats, and %@ for NSString objects
• an object’s “description” method works like .ToString()

Very brief introduction to debug tasks

• set a breakpoint, view all breakpoints, etc.
• data tip
• info
• quick look
• command-driven debug console panel/window

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String-number conversions

We’ll create a Strings project

Work with NSString class

We’ll create a Numbers project

Will convert and round-trip strings and numbers

Using the Apple reference documentation

• Option+click for quick help (and access to the full reference document)
• Cmd+click to view the definition (i.e. where/in which module the symbol is defined)
• in a web browser, search for content using this format – “apple nsstring reference”

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Introduction to collections – dictionary and array

Three collection classes that you’ll use often – dictionary, array, and set

We’ll use the first two many times in the next few weeks, and the set later

These are structures that have pointers to objects – they do NOT contain the objects

Immutable and mutable versions are available (the immutable version is the subclass for the mutable version)

Dictionary introduction – key-value pairs; keys are often strings, value can be ANY object

Definition, using literal syntax; dereference using objectForKey: (or valueForKey:)

If you wish to store a C scalar (e.g. int, double) as a value, you must box/wrap it, e.g. [NSNumber numberWithInt:123]

Array introduction – values can be ANY objects

Definition, using literal syntax; dereference using objectAtIndex:

Study the reference documentation for NSDictionary and NSArray

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Introduction to iOS apps

First few projects… will use “Single View Application”

Then, for awhile we’ll use… “Empty Application”

After a few weeks, we’ll build our own ‘template’ and use that as a base

First example – study the app structure, the purpose of the ‘application delegate’, controller, and scene (view)

Round-trip data, using text field and button

Tying user interface objects to your program code

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