Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Second edition

The smart presentation style and easy-to-understood code examples help make this text an excellent resource. (It also helps that Aaron Hillegass is a truly engaging writer.) He first explains how the legacy NeXTSTEP platform has evolved into Cocoa on the Mac OS X. Beginning with short examples illustrating the actual Cocoa tools in action, the author gets you started with simple programs for a random-number generator, a raise calculator, and other comprehensible examples. Rather than just listing APIs and classes, the emphasis is on hands-on Cocoa development. An early standout section provides a nice tour of essential Objective-C features you'll need to know to use Cocoa effectively.

This book covers the several dozen built-in Cocoa controls, from basic text and buttons to more advanced widgets (including lists and tables). Subsequent sections look at user interface design (using the Interface Builder to create nib files) and how to add programmatic processing behind the visual layout. Along the way, the author introduces coverage of essential Cocoa APIs for strings, arrays, and dictionaries. Later chapters look at saving and loading documents (and user defaults) and how to tap the powerful graphics abilities available in Cocoa. (Besides image and basic drawing, there are short sections on PDF support and printing.)

More advanced user interface features get their due by the end of the book, including cutting and pasting data through the Cocoa pasteboard and also adding drag-and-drop support. Final sections look at creating new controls for use with the Interface Builder palette, and, briefly, how to use Java with Cocoa (an option that the author doesn't necessarily recommend). Throughout this text, the author provides more advanced, challenging problems at the end of each chapter for the "more curious" reader. This approach keeps beginners from getting lost in the details of Cocoa development, but gives the more advanced reader something more to do.

While there are comparably fewer books on Mac OS X compared to other platforms, readers are lucky to have this one available. Anyone who wants to get onboard with Cocoa development will be well served by this title. It's a fine tutorial that earns high marks for its approachable, clear examples and an excellent presentation by an author who knows his stuff and, better yet, knows how to teach it to others. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Brief history of the Mac platform (from NeXTSTEP to Mac OS X), basic Cocoa development in Objective-C, using Project Builder and Interface Builder tools, tutorial to Objective-C (instances, variables, using classes, arrays and other containers, custom classes), the Objective-C debugger, basic Cocoa controls (building user interfaces), tables and data sources, event handling and delegates, archiving documents (encoding and decoding, saving and loading documents), Nib files, window panels, saving and retrieving user defaults (including using dictionary classes), notifications (observers and more on delegates), alert panels, localization (including string tables, a English and French example, the nibtool utility), custom views and drawing, drawing images and mouse events (plus coordinates systems and autoscrolling views), responders and keyboard events, fonts and strings (including attributed strings and PDF support), pasteboards and nil-targeted actions, using Objective-C categories (a code reuse feature), drag-and-drop support, timers, sheets and drawers, formatting strings, printing support, on-the-fly menu updating, text editing with text views, basic tutorial for using Java with Cocoa, and custom Interface Builder palettes (and inspectors).

Product Description
"The highly acclaimed introduction to Cocoa-recommended most by experienced Mac OS X developers now updated and expanded. Here's what critics said about the first edition: "Reading this book is the absolute best way to learn how to harness the power of this amazing technology."
-Andrew Stone, President, Stone Design, www.stone.com "Make sure this is the first one you pick up. It's the best book for a beginning Cocoa programmer."
-From the review on HyperJeff.net& "I love this book. The descriptions are clear, the examples logical. Everything a programmer needs to get up to speed on Cocoa."
-Dave Mark, Editor, MacTech Magazine

To help programmers develop applications for Mac OS X, Apple is now giving away XCode, Interface Builder, and the Cocoa frameworks-the tools used to create Safari, GarageBand, Mail, and the iApps. Cocoa- Programming for Mac- OS X, Second Edition, will give you a complete understanding of how to use these tremendously powerful tools and frameworks to write full-featured applications for the Mac.

Guiding programmers through the key features of Cocoa, this book emphasizes design patterns that enable you to predict the behavior of classes you have never used before. Written in a tutorial format, it takes you step-by-step through the creation of six applications and an Interface Builder palette. Each project introduces several new ideas, and as each concept or technique is discussed, the author, drawing on his own extensive experience, shows you the right way to use it.

Updated for Xcode and Mac OS X 10.3, new chapters in this second edition include coverage of OpenGL, AppleScriptability, the undo manager, creating frameworks, and a brief introduction to using GNUstep on Linux.