| OverviewBuilding Cocoa Applications takes a
step-by-step approach to teaching developers how to build
real graphics applications using Cocoa. By showing the
basics of an application in one chapter and then layering
additional functionality onto that application in subsequent
chapters, the book keeps readers interested and motivated.
Readers will see immediate results, and then go on to build
onto what they've already achieved. By the end of the book,
readers who have built the applications as they have read
will have a solid understanding of what it really means to
develop complete and incrementally more complex Cocoa
applications. Editorial Reviews| Book Description | | Cocoa is an object-oriented development environment available in Apple's Mac OS X environment. Mac OS X, a unified operating system and graphical operating environment, is the fastest growing Unix variant on the market today. Hard-core Unix programmers, developers who cut their teeth on classic Mac operating systems, and developers who cherished NeXTSTEP, the decade-old system on which today's Cocoa is based -- all are flocking to Cocoa, and they need a lot more practical information than is currently available from Apple. There is a lot to learn. Building Cocoa Applications is an ideal book for serious developers who want to write programs for the Mac OS X using Cocoa. It's a no-nonsense, hands-on text that's filled with examples -- not only simple and self-contained examples of individual Cocoa features, but extended examples of complete applications with enough sophistication and complexity that readers can put them to immediate use in their own environments. Building Cocoa Applications takes a step-by-step approach to teaching developers how to build real graphics applications using Cocoa. By showing the basics of an application in one chapter and then layering additional functionality onto that application in subsequent chapters, the book keeps readers interested and motivated. Readers will see immediate results, and then go on to build onto what they've already achieved. The book is divided into four major parts: Part I introduces the Mac OS X graphical user interface (Aqua) from a developer's point of view, Cocoa developer tools (such as the Interface Builder, Project Builder, and gdb debugger), object-oriented concepts, the Objective-C language in which Cocoa is written, and the basics of Cocoa programming itself. Part II focuses on building the first complete application, Calculator, a simple four-function calculator. The chapters in this part of the book extend the application, piece by piece, by introducing such features as nibs, icons, delegation, resizing, events, and responders. Part III focuses on building an application called MathPaper, which is similar to a word processor but which instead solves mathematical expressions the user supplies. The chapters in this part of the book extend MathPaper by developing both the front and back ends using a variety of Cocoa classes and methods. They introduce Cocoa'sdocument-based architecture, tasks, pipes, Rich Text format, handling document files, and using Quartz to draw in windows. Part IV focuses on building the GraphPaper application, a more complex multithreading application that graphs mathematical functions in multiple dimensions and that uses mouse-over capabilities to identify graph points. The chapters in this part of the book add more advanced Mac OS X features such as multithreading, color, mouse events, zoom buttons, pasteboards, services, preferences, and the defaults database. By the end of the book, readers who have built the applications as they have read will have a solid understanding of what it really means to develop complete and incrementally more complex Cocoa applications. The book comes with extensive source code available for download from the O'Reilly web site, along with an appendix listing additional resources for further study. |
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Reader Reviews From Amazon (Ranked by 'Helpfulness') | Average Customer Rating: |  | based on 18 reviews. |
| Error-ridden and too little actual teaching, 2004-05-10 | | Reviewer rating: |  |
| | Not recommended, although some people like it a lot. More errors in the text than others, making you go to the web for errata pages. Relies too much on just presenting source code for the reader to type in, without adequate explanation of what the code does and why it's structured the way it is. Less of a gentle introduction than Hillegass's book "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X", less comprehensive than Anguish's book "Cocoa Programming". |
| | Try a different book first., 2004-04-05 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| | This book has potential, but in general I am pretty dissatisfied. Good things: (1) It is pretty well thought-out. (2) The progression through 4 projects is good. (3) There is working code for the examples available online. Bad things:
(1) The book is riddled with errors. If you include the unofficial errata from OReilly's Website, the book becomes about 200% more usable. (2) Why has this book not been reprinted? At LEAST OReilly should have released an official errata for this book at this point!!! (3) This book does NOT cover 10.3 and the XCode software (still uses project builder). In most cases this is ok and you can figure much of it out. However, there are times that the differences are too significant to overcome without a lot of effort.
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I have been very happy with O'Reilly books in the past, but this one is substandard.
I would recommend trying a different book unless this one is overhauled. |
| | Well written book..., 2003-09-25 | | Reviewer rating: |  |
| | I tried using Aaron Hillegass' book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, but this book was much easier to follow for me. I don't mean to rag on Hillegass' book - it's still well written - just a not quite as easy for me. This book takes the time to *explain* the concepts before diving into a program. However, if you're looking for a reference book, this isn't it. This book will teach you how to use Cocoa by taking you through the construction of three fairly fancy applications - a calculator, and two word processing oriented programs. |
| | Too much of some, not enough of other intformation, 2003-09-11 | | Reviewer rating: |  |
| | Let me start off by saying that chapter 1 is completely useless. I bought this book to learn about programming - not to learn tips and tricks for the OS! Chapter 1 has lessons on things like emptying the trash, getting file information, etc.! If I'm buying a book on programming, shouldn't it be assumed that I already know how TO MOVE AND COPY A FILE WITHIN THE OS??!!! Sorry, but it is useless in this book and SHOULD NOT be in there! A serious waste of space by the publishers. That said, the rest of the book is pretty good, but I wish it were more comprehensive (Hmmm, maybe skipping the chapter on how to rename folders and adding some extra programming information would have been good...) and like another reviewer, I wish the code examples were explained better. I would recommend this book as ancillary to more comprehensive programming manuals. |
| | More than adequate Cocoa introduction, 2003-07-12 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| | Finding the online Cocoa documentation (that comes with the Dev Tools) to be seriously lacking, I went to the bookstore and quickly found this book. Just judging from the table of contents, it's clear the book covers a wide variety of topics, more than enough to get any programmer off the ground with Cocoa. The book employs a tried-and-true programming book style, introducing each topic with a general discussion, and then following by giving you code to type into your program. There are four parts to the book, with the first part being an overview of various things, and each subsequent part containing several chapters in which you study Cocoa features pertinent to a specific project, which you build throughout each chapter. I have only one beef with this book: it may not be enough for very novice programmers. I have previously programmed the Mac Toolbox and I have a lot of C and C++ experience, so I usually knew what was going on. But someone with less experience may have trouble because frequently the book will just tell you to enter a bunch of code, and not really give an adequate explanation of what's happening. Of course, even experienced programmers may find this book a little too "hold my hand and follow me" to actually get started with Cocoa programming. But the book does do a very good job of getting you familiar with the classes and methods you'll be needing to use when you do get off the ground. I highly recommend buying this book, as my experience with it has been very positive. If you do not get the confidence you need to build your own Cocoa apps just from this book, though, then I (as well as the authors of this book) recommend "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Aaron Hillegass as a supplement. Together the two will give you an even more comprehensive knowledge of Cocoa, as well as two sources to consult if you get confused (two is always better than one). (In addition, before reading any Cocoa book, I recommend reading "The Objective-C Programming Language", which can be found in the Developer Tools documentation under Cocoa. Most Cocoa books do provide a brief Objective-C tutorial, but it will be to your advantage if you already know the language, as these tutorials are not terribly adequate.) |
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