Cocoa drag & drop information - macos

Question

I have a very simple application test in which I want to drag and drop files in a NSImageView object.
I can already get the list of files from this action, but now I want to store this data in an array to be accessed in the View using data bindings. The only code I have that works fine with data bindings, tough, has an array in AppDelegate that I access using an Array Controller. But then, my data is inside a class I created to the NSImageView called "DropView", which extends "NSImageView" class and handles the drop action.
How can I pass the array information to make the bindings possible?
Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks!

Answer 1

I decided to use a singleton in a bigger project. In this smaller one I did like this:
1 - Add AppDelegate reference to the subclass (m file):
#import "AppDelegate.h"
2 - Call a method declared in the AppDelegate passing all the information needed like this:
[[NSApp delegate] doSomething:someInformation];
3 - Set all the information in the method used.
4 - Make the bindings in the interface.

Answer 2

The simple answer is that you should not be storing model data (the array of file URLs) in a view.
Your view should pass the list of files to some other controller object, which then stores the list of files in some sort of model object. This is what MVC is about.
One way to do this is to use the delegate pattern, where your view would declare a protocol method something like this:
#protocol YourViewProtocol
- (void)imageView:(YourImageViewClass*)aView receivedDroppedURLs:(NSArray*)arrayOfURLs;
#end
Your view would also have a weak datasource property:
#interface YourImageViewClass : NSImageView
#property (weak) id <YourViewProtocol> datasource;
#end
You would then set your controller object as the datasource of the view. The controller must conform to the protocol and implement its method:
#interface YourController <YourViewProtocol>
- (void)imageView:(YourImageViewClass*)aView receivedDroppedURLs:(NSArray*)arrayOfURLs;
#end
Then, in the view method that receives the drop, you'd do something like:
- (void)receivedDroppedURLs:(NSArray*)urls
{
if([datasource conformsToProtocol:#protocol(YourViewProtocol)])
{
[datasource imageView:self receivedDroppedURLs:urls];
}
}
The other way to do this is via custom bindings. Implementing bindings in a custom view is a bit more complicated and I'd recommend that you use the delegate/datasource pattern initially, if you're not an experienced Cocoa developer.