Anyone know how to load and use NIB files in F-script? I have been trying to translate from some Objective-C Cocoa tutorials but it isn't working and I have a feeling that F-script must have some different requirements.

In particular, when using something like

NSBundle loadNibNamed:owner:

or related initialization methods, I can't figure out what the owner object should be.

The Objective-C tutorials all use owner:self but I don't think that will work when the NIB is loaded from a standalone script and not a class object.

You would have to use a window controller or some such technique.

WindowController has a method called:

initWithWindowNibPath:owner:

Unfortunately you still need an owner which wrecks the plan.

Did you look at the f-script examples in the f-script site. I think they have an example of how to load a nib.

But since you are already coming from ObjectiveC, why don't you just make a plugin. It's pretty easy and we have examples of loading a window I believe.

Look at the dev kit.

If you don't have a nib's file owner object at hand, you can still get access to the top-level objects in the nib and, from there, to the whole object graph in the nib to do whatever you want. For example, the folowing code loads a nib file (in this case, the nib of Apple's Mail POP account details panel) and get the nib's top-level objects (in this particular case, there is just one) in an array named topLevelObjects.

  

" Define the path of the nib" 
nibPath := '/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/POPAccountDetails.nib'.

" Create an empty array that will be populated with the nib's top level objects "
topLevelObjects := {}.

" Create a dictionary configured in order to pass our empty array to the nib loading method (see the Cocoa documentation)"
nameTable := NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:topLevelObjects forKey:NSNibTopLevelObjects.

" Load the nib file and populate our array "
NSBundle loadNibFile:nibPath externalNameTable:nameTable withZone:nil.

"In this particular example, the nib contains a panel. Put it on screen."
(topLevelObjects at:0) orderFront:nil.

Best,

Philippe Mougin