Where to start making an application like ACDsee

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Where to start making an application like ACDsee

I am new to Cocoa, but I would like to give a shot to a project for my college course in programming.

Basically what i am trying to achieve is a simple cocoa app that is able to read into a directory, make thumbnails of the supported files, and display the files when double clicked. Basically if you have ever seen ACDsee you know what i am trying to replicate (without any editing function or extra features: just read files in a dir using the hierarchy view on the left, and make a list of thumbnails on the right)

Not sure where to start; I know OBJ-C but i am totally new to graphical apps, so any suggestion about where to look would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

I would suggest to have a look at apple documentation to learn a bit more about objective-c as a programming language that supports the object oriented programming paradigm (I hope you know it, nevertheless obj-c is a nice language to start programming in object-oriented with). With Apple documentation you will get lots of tutorial and sample code (I suggest also that you sign like a developer, for free). Plus there are many video tutorials and podcasts on itunes U. The steps that you may take are: 1- learn a bit more about obj-c and XCode (you will you it as the programming ide) 2- get into cocoa (or cocoa touch) and Interface Builder (another developing tool, useful for creating graphical interfaces by writing less code, built into the next version of xcode) 3- Try to understand code and complete project samples (and asking for help here) ASsuming that you are comfortable with programming in oo and you know some design patterns useful to understand how to build an app

rano 2010-07-15 21:45:43

The main problem with many resources is that they teach you OBJ-c, while i would like to learn about Cocoa;something like: to make a viewer get these components, now this component X does this, and when you wanna add a picture you use this method: x; and to retrieve the image you use y; to know more about component X check the docs hereI've seen many books for the iphone that has this approach, but cannot find any resource like this for cocoa, that in facts tells me what to put on a nib file to make a thumbnail viewer; and how to use the objects (tableview, pictureview, etc)

newbiez 2010-07-15 23:13:50

You shall check again apple sample tutorials and code I guess (there are tutorials for view controllers, table controllers, uipicker etc and well structered links to the API documentation), but first of all I guess you need some introduction to the framework cocoa and I suggest some video podcast from iTunes U (maybe even those from WWDC can help) they will introduce you to the general ideas behind this framework and its design patterns (delegation, target-action, MVC )

rano 2010-07-16 07:29:03

Will try Rano.I've found this nice podcast that was pretty useful, called hot cocoa; spot on like i prefer it; but still was not able to get how to put images in a thumbnail view without coding everything from A to Z

newbiez 2010-07-19 23:47:21

+1 A:

Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition) is really good and will help alot.

Derek Clarkson 2010-07-16 06:19:08

Thanks Derek, was looking at the book but then i opted for Learn Cocoa on the mac from Apress; that was more oriented on the practical side instead of going for the design patterns...I know that they are important, but when you have just yourself and you need something done, is necessary to sacrifice protocols and just do what it works (spaghetti code, yes...hate it but save your life).

newbiez 2010-07-19 23:49:24

ansaurus

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Where to start making an application like ACDsee

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