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Mac Forum / Programming / Mac Programming / March 2008Example of Applescript driving Interface Builder ?
Does anyone have an example applescript script which drives the Interface Builder to build a .nib file ? aka: script thats ends commands to Interface Builder to insert a text box at location X Y, sets attributes of that text box and then saves the .NIB file ? I am able to start interface builder and open an existing document. Unable to create a new one, and definitely don't wher where to start to start inserting objects into a window. Having an example would allow me to associate what I see in the dictionary for interface builder with the script and greatly help me. (My goal is to parse legacy form layouts into an applescript that would create a apple native .NIB file with roughly same layout as on the legacy platform) > Does anyone have an example applescript script which drives the > Interface Builder to build a .nib file ? [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Unable to create a new one, and definitely don't wher where to start to > start inserting objects into a window. I doubt that you can do that using its dictionary. Using User Interface Scripting might work, but IMO would just be an exercise in perseverence. > Having an example would allow me to associate what I see in the > dictionary for interface builder with the script and greatly help me. > > (My goal is to parse legacy form layouts into an applescript that would > create a apple native .NIB file with roughly same layout as on the > legacy platform) I would not do that that way. Guessing at the .nib file format and writing the XML probably would be orders of magnitude easier, faster, and about as likely to break in a future version. If long-term compatibility is a requirement, you might want to build on GNUstep. According to <http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2006/08/nib-encoding-now-working-in-gnus tep.html>, its Interface builder equivalent can write Cocoa .nib files. Reinder > Does anyone have an example applescript script which drives the > Interface Builder to build a .nib file ? I don't believe Interface Builder can be scripted to do something like that. > (My goal is to parse legacy form layouts into an applescript that would > create a apple native .NIB file with roughly same layout as on the > legacy platform) Don't parse the form layouts and generate nib files from them at build time. Parse them at run time, and lay out your controls by just creating instances of the appropriate classes and adding them as subviews of your windows' content views. It'll be a lot easier both to implement and to maintain over the long term. -- Chris > Parse them at run time, and lay out your controls by just creating > instances of the appropriate classes and adding them as subviews of > your windows' content views. These legacy forms are created in a DEC/VMS proprietary format for the old FMS software. FMS doesn't run on Mac... FMS can export its proprietary binary format into a text form that can be parsed. (.FLG format) Moving that .FLG to the Mac and having my application parse it whenever it is started would preclude my adding more forms later on (no software on the mac to generate .FLGs), or modify/improve those existing forms to put GUI features on them. I really want to move my apps over and use modern tools from now on and no longre have any dependencies on the old system. I have done some reading and found the command line utility "nibtool". It can export a easy to understand structure of objects in a .nib file. Unfortunatly, it cannot read it and convert it into a real .NIB again. Reading more on the web, I found one Interface Builder .PDF which mentions the "ibtool" utility which can export and re-import to re-create a .NIB file. (page 96 of the Interface Builder User Guide) Unfortunatly, this is not on my system (10.4.11) and the manual is for 10.5 Any chance it could create .NIB in a format 10.4 would understand ? Any chance it would work on 10.4 ? > Reading more on the web, I found one Interface Builder .PDF which > mentions the "ibtool" utility which can export and re-import to > re-create a .NIB file. (page 96 of the Interface Builder User Guide) > > Unfortunatly, this is not on my system (10.4.11) and the manual is for > 10.5 Present in 10.5 and doesn't work with 10.4. Considering the price for developers, it's probably worth you updating to 10.5. Simon.  Signaturehttp://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk > Present in 10.5 and doesn't work with 10.4. Considering the price for > developers, it's probably worth you updating to 10.5. Can't upgrade to 10.5, I still have many classic apps. On 18/03/2008, JF Mezei wrote in message <47df8ec8$0$23909$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>: > (My goal is to parse legacy form layouts into an applescript that would > create a apple native .NIB file with roughly same layout as on the > legacy platform) Apparently it's not easy to script Interface Builder. I think it might be easier to have your AppleScript write Cocoa code which creates the views and fields. After all that's just text generation. Simon. Signaturehttp://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk |
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