When do I not need to specify File's Owner for a nib?

views:

207

answers:

+1 Q:

When do I not need to specify File's Owner for a nib?

+2 A:

Going by what you quoted, the book says that your File's Owner is using the objects in the nib, but the objects in the nib are not using File's Owner, so you don't really need to configure File's Owner at all in IB.

You always have a File's Owner, because something is loading the nib, and that something is the File's Owner.

More to the point, even if the objects in the nib are not using the FO now, you may change them later to do so, so you might as well configure the FO every time.

Configuring the FO in IB also makes accessing the objects in the nib easier. Once you tell IB what class the FO is, you can create outlet variables in your header, and IB will detect them automatically; then you can connect those outlets in IB and access the objects by those outlet variables in your code.

Peter Hosey 2009-08-22 05:42:28

If I understood you correctly, File's Owner is always set, but if your nib does not need to communicate anything back to the rest of the program you don't to use File's Owner for outlets or targets. Is that correct?

Jergason 2009-08-22 05:53:24

You kind of make it sound like you can't have outlets if you don't use File's Owner, which isn't the case (I'm sure you're aware of this, too). In general, setting the class for File's Owner works great if you're subclassing one of the NS*Controller classes.

Cinder6 2009-08-22 05:59:31

You would still set the FO as the target of actions, and you can even still bind to the FO. And yes, you can manually add outlets in IB, but I find it easier to just set the class once and let IB auto-detect outlets (and flag stale outlet connections!) thereafter.

Peter Hosey 2009-08-22 07:06:05

(Well, you can bind on the Mac. Not on the iPhone.)

Peter Hosey 2009-08-22 07:06:36

IB will automatically detect outlets/actions in other custom classes you make (you just add an NSObject and set its class). Or am I misreading you?

Cinder6 2009-08-22 18:42:10

We're talking about the File's Owner. You don't add an object; the File's Owner is already there, because it's *always* there. And yes, you need to set its class for IB to auto-detect its outlets—that's what I said in my answer.

Peter Hosey 2009-08-22 21:01:55

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

When do I not need to specify File's Owner for a nib?

related questions