macOS Saving text in document-based application.

Hi all,

I have a document based app which I want to add open and save to, it's just a little text editor so it's nothing major.

The problem is that I'm using a custom NSWindowController class to handle my interface, an instance of which is my `Files Owner'. I can connect to an NSTextView outlet in this class but not in the NSDocument class .

How then do I implement the saving functions so that they write the data from my textView? Can they be implemented in the NSWindowController or is there a way to access the textView? I was thinking maybe I could implement a setter and getter for it...

Thanks in advance for any help,

Mark.

HiRez said:

I think you could just use accessors to get to it, but why is your window controller File's Owner? Shouldn't that be the NSDocument? I guess what I would do is to make an app controller object and run everything through there (or maybe your window controller could double as the app controller). To be honest, I often have a hard time deciding on the structure of my top level objects: Document, App Controller, etc., and how they should be connected. Eventually I settle on something that works but I never feel like I know quite how I should be setting everything up when I begin a project.

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The window controller is my Files Owner because thats how I read I was supposed to use it .

I'm no Cocoa expert and the learning curve is massive, in just about any language I've used I can manage a reasonable result with minimal effort but with Cocoa and Obj-C there's just so much you have to know about specific aspects of the architecture. Getting anything done as a noob seems impossible .

Anyway I've managed to get access to the textView outlet though a getter; there's no need for a setter because I don't want to swap in a new textView .

The problem I'm having now though is that I cant figure out how to change the text in the textView.

Does anyone know how to open and save a text file from a document based application? I've found plenty of examples that work with the NSArchiver and NSUnarchver classes but that's not what I want.

Any help would be welcome,

Mark.

robbieduncan said:

OK. I've taken pity on you. I've attached a very simple XCode project. It's a Cocoa text editor that can open and save plain text files. I wrote around 15 lines of code to get this to work.

This is the power of Cocoa. Almost no code for something simple.

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Thanks Robbie your example worked perfectly but after implementing the same methods and connecting everything up I still can't get get a file to open. Writing was working already but I think your code is cleaner than what I had using NSData.

I don't understand why I can't change the text view's contents. I can obviously access the outlet so it just strikes me as weird, this is what I found before and I figured that I was just doing something wrong.

Is there some extra configuration I need to do in order to allow reading and writing? Maybe in a plist somewhere?

Mark.

Ok I've tracked it down to my -windowControllerDidLoadNib not being called because I'm overriding -makeWindowControllers.

I've scoured the documentation and I haven't found any other methods that might do the same thing. Any ideas guys?

Mark.

HiRez said:

Have you called [myWindowController setDocument:myDocument]; to tell your window controller which document it's associated with (or connected this in IB)?

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Thanks for the reply man,

Most certainly but I've changed the setup a little. The NSDocument subclass is now the Files Owner like you suggested . Reading the documentation it sounds like windowControllerDidLoadNib is only called if windowNibName is overridden – I've tested this and it works fine however it bypasses all of the work I've done in my custom windowController.

What I'm looking for is a way to update the NSTextView when the nib is loaded and keep my windowController.

Thanks for any advice ,

Mark.