project pointers and transition advice
project pointers and transition advice
- Subject: project pointers and transition advice
- From: "Steve Butcher (Steve-O)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:22:42 -0400
Dear list,
I'm learning cocoa and objective C and I've worked through the
calculators and the currency converters and a few other things. I
started out as a Java programmer so the Objective C part isn't
difficult--the C part sometimes gives me troubles. The biggest
problem I have is finding out where things are in terms of the APIs
and finding examples of what the APIs can do. Although Java doesn't
do this perfectly, it does it well so I'm a little spoiled.
My idea for a first "real" project comes from a program I had years
ago for OS 7 and is apropos as I'm returning to grad school in the
fall. It enabled you to create concept maps. (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Concept_map) It was pretty slick although there was room for
improvement.
From an engineering perspective, it *looked* like the designer was
tying into some basic Finder-like functionality. Each "document"
seemed to behave more or less like the Finder. For example, when you
first created a concept, say, "Cocoa", the icon that you had dragged
out on the sheet behaved exactly like a document icon in the finder.
The name was in the same place and was edited the same way. You could
turn the snap-to-grid on and off. You could double-click it and a
multimedia notepad would open up so that you could type notes or
insert a picture. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it didn't
look *drawn*...although you were able to draw arrows and lines
between concepts (icons) and label them. You could also embedded
concept maps within concepts by drag and drop at which point the
concept started acting like a folder. The icon would change and
double-clicking the icon would show a new window with the sub-map.
My question is...are there basic Finder like behaviors exposed
somewhere in the APIs? If so, where and which ones? Are they
compatible with the drawing routines? (Core Graphics? Image? some of
this stuff still confuses me). My basic use case is:
- create a document
- drag "concept" icons and label them; change icon as needed
(how do you access and draw icons? In Java, they would have to be
PNGs or similar and drawn on a JCanvas. A class would encapsulate the
image, label, position and perhaps connections to other concepts. But
what if they are in an iContainer or just part of the applications
icns file?).
- connect concepts using undirected and directed arcs which can be
labeled.
- double click icons to open a notes window.
- save document
- open document
I guess my chief question is, is the basic Finder functionality in
the Finder or elsewhere as that would go a long way towards
everything except the arcs. Where is it? If I have to implement the
whole thing as vector graphics, what is the equivalent of the drawing
and image capabilities in java.awt.*? Is it even in Cocoa? (I find it
somewhat strange that not all APIs are ObjC...are they being
converted or will some always by C?)
Any API pointers, example code, tutorial pointers would be greatly
appreciated.
As a side note, if anyone else went or is going from Java to Cocoa/
ObjC, if there are any pointers for how things are designed the same
or differently I would appreciate an wisdom you might have to impart.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Steve
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