I am doing a minimal port of a simple iPhone/iPad app (think 2D casual game with a single view) to the Mac (almost nothing has changed in the UI, except swapping touchable Cocoa Touch UI elements for mouse-clickable Cocoa UI elements). In the iPhone app, a little "i" button brings up a text view containing basic instructions, followed by all the required (possibly lengthy) BSD/MIT/Apache/Artistic/et.al. copyright notices and their associated disclaimers for any random borrowed code.
The ported Mac app is intended to be distributed from the Mac App store, so additional README files outside the app bundle/sandbox can't be used. I note that many Mac App store apps do not put this text in the About... box, or use a little "i" button like iPhone apps.
So where do I put the equivalent README text in a Mac App Store app?
I would like this text to be included with the Mac app so that it's viewable from within the app even when the Mac is completely off-line.
ADDED:
I see recommendations for putting all this text in the About... dialog, but, if so, my guess is that many apps are skimping on all the required text that seems to go with many of these licenses (I've seen a few with a page or two of required disclaimers. Which Mac app has all that in the About... dialog?)
Just put a Credits.html or Credits.rtf file in your bundle, it'll automatically be displayed in the dialog that's shown after clicking the "About MyApp" item in the main menu.
Usually, a Mac app includes an «About» window, with the application's icon, name, version number and author.
If you have credits to display, you may display them on that window, if it's only a few lines.
If you have a long text, you should add a «credits» button on the «About» window, that eventually opens a specific credits window, with the text you want.
Related
Does anybody know, how to change the appearance of the title bar and/or toolbar of a simple & small one-window cocoa macOS application without accessing the Xcode or installing third party applications? It's for a screen recording video project, I want to do.
I know, that there are possibilities within the applications info.plist (for example changing the app title inside the top macOS Menu Bar) but I would like to be able to change the apps window title itself and/or colors and/or fonts inside the window title bar or toolbar if possible.
Opening the app in another container window or via terminal or Applescript and adding custom parameters or even an overlay in the right position to change the styling would be okay if this is possible?
Can somebody point me in the right direction?
Thank you very much!
in short: Nibs
Nib File Viewer works until Xcode 10
saving, recompiling if possible
good luck
I have an app in the app store, FractalWorks, which is based on a very old code-base. It's a big app, with quite a few screens. It was created in Objective-C before auto-synthesized properties were a thing, to give you an idea of how long ago it was created.
I wrote the app when I had a full-time gig as an independent software developer. I've since taken a day job, and support my apps in my spare time.
It still sells fairly well, and I recently used to add a section to the Wikipedia article on the Mandelbrot set on 3D images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set#3D_images_of_Mandelbrot_and_Julia_sets
I'm fluent in Auto-Layout now, but haven't taken the time to update the app's XIB files from "struts and springs" style to Auto-Layout - nor do I want to invest the time to do so if I can possibly help it.
I want to add a minor enhancement to the app that involves adding some UI elements and making one of the windows slightly taller. The minute I try to use Interface Builder to edit my XIB, it apparently silently changes it to Auto-Layout, and then complains about "Auto Layout before OS X 10.7". (It was released to the app store for OS X version 10.4, if memory serves, and I've moved the OS version up to the lowest version I could get away with in order to support legacy customers. It currently supports ≥10.6. The original, pre app-store version used even older OS versions.)
Googling this error suggests I use the file inspector on my XIB file to un-check a "Use AutoLayout" checkbox, but I don't see any such checkbox.
What am I missing?
If I use Xcode's code review button to compare the XIB file before and after editing it, various "tool version" values are changed, as well as it gaining a setting useAutolayout="YES". Editing that to read useAutolayout="NO" does not solve the problem.
All the credit goes to matt and his comment.
1. In the Navigator (left panel) go to issue navigator and click on the error.
2. In the Inspectors panel (right panel) the Size inspector will be automatically selected. Switch Layout from Automatic to Translates Mask Into Constraints.
Update: It's called Autoresizing Mask now.
3. Repeat for every occurrence of this error.
You may end up with an error not in the Illegal Configuration group like the following which opens the All Messages view in the middle and doesn't open the Size inspector.
This is a compile time error, just build/run your app again.
And also from the previously mentioned comment:
Be careful not to make any constraints, as that will cause an incoherent situation.
If you have multiple auto layout errors, which in all likelihood you will have, select all the controls in a window and perform the operation once rather than for each individual control. Repeat for each window.
I would like to create a preferences window like in the standard Mac OS X apps (Safari etc.). I have found resources like DBPrefsWindowController from back in 2008 that matches the Apple HIG.
Just wondering if there is a new way to accomplish this? I can't locate any standard windows in Interface Builder so I assume Apple doesn't provide those, nor can I locate a official Apple sample code for providing this standard UI.
Thank you
It seems DBPrefsWindowController is no longer available.
For now, I would recommend the up to date RHPreferences framework.
Available on GitHub. BSD Licensed.
It’s a simple and easy Preferences window controller with multiple tabs for your next Mac application.
It also provides:
Auto resizing between different sized tab views (With animation)
Custom NSToolbarItem support
Persistence of the last used tab
Support for placeholder NSToolbarItems (eg NSToolbarFlexibleSpaceItemIdentifier & NSToolbarShowFontsItemIdentifier)
I developed some app for iPhone/iPad, so I know the basic concepts of Cocoa programming. Now I need to write a Mac OS X application. If you help me to choose the right controls to use, I'll study the Apple documentation reference for them.
I need:
a control to show a grid of thumbnails (png images); I'll be able to change the order of the thumbnails by dragging and dropping them;
a control to show a single image (e.g. UIImageView of Cocoa Touch) with the possibility to drag and drop another image over the first one; besides I need to move and resize the second image by dragging its corners (as if corners were "anchors");
a control to browse the media files on the Mac (possibly iPhoto images, iTunes DRM-free songs, or simply the content of a given folder), like the media browser of iMovie.
I use Xcode 4.2.
You can use NSCollectionView and co. for this. Xcode has a sample application somewhere in documentation (browsing various images) as well as tutorial on how to setup NSCollectionView yourself.
Check NSImageView. You can basically find any Cocoa control alternative to Cocoa Touch just by changing UI prefix to NS.
There is no such control per-se (unless IKImageBrowser for backgrounds), but using aforementioned NSCollectionView and some API for media files you should get around pretty quickly.
Also check ImageKit framework for images (for browsing, viewing and modifying).
I'm writing an app for OS X (in REALbasic, not Objective-C). I have implemented a source list (i.e. the sidebar in iTunes) in this app.
Where on my system can I find the "standard" icons used on a sidebar, i.e: things like the "eject" and "battery" icon seen in iTunes when your iPod is plugged in. I've checked the iTunes package contents and have found a couple (stuff like the Music and TV shows icons) but that is all.
Thanks,
The standard icons are those defined in Icon Services and NSImage. There are none specifically for sidebars, and the two examples you list are not among the standard icons. (There is a kEjectMediaIcon in Icon Services, but it's the one the Dock uses, not the one you see in Finder and iTunes.)
iTunes may or may not be using an image for this, but the Eject symbol is available as a standard Unicode character: ⏏. (If you don't like how that looks, view it in a different font. Apple Symbols and Lucida Grande both have good versions.)
As for the battery icon: If you open up Linotype FontExplorer, you can see that Apple Symbols has a glyph for it (waaaay down near the bottom of the font's Characters list), but it's only accessible as a glyph variant. Even once you draw the glyph, you'll still need to fill it in with the battery level, so you might as well draw the whole thing yourself.