Overview

If you've done any amount of programming on Mac OS X, you know that the API can be quite verbose. Even with MacRuby's wonderful keyword arguments, it can be daunting to enter this...

win = NSWindow.alloc.initWithContentRect [10,20,300,300],
  styleMask: (NSTitledWindowMask         |
              NSClosableWindowMask       |
              NSMiniaturizableWindowMask |
              NSResizableWindowMask)

...every time you want to create and configure a new NSWindow instance!

This is the reason most developers use Interface Builder to configure interface components. The purpose of HotCocoa is to allow you to use the flexible syntax of Ruby and its dynamic nature to simplify programmatically constructing user interfaces on Mac OS X without an Interface Builder.

With HotCocoa, creating the NSWindow instance above is as simple as:

win = window frame: [10,20,300,300]

HotCocoa achieves this feat by creating Mappings over the most common Classes and Constants used on Mac OS X. Those mappings create constructor methods on the HotCocoa module (like the "window" method above). Each constructor method accepts an optional block which yields the created instance (more on that in the HotCocoa Tutorial). Mappings also decorate the standard Objective-C API with nice Ruby APIs for common operations. The important thing to realize is that the constructor methods return real instances of these common classes, not high-level abstractions. So, you can call any Objective-C method available on those objects.

In HotCocoa, Mappings provide the following:

  • Defaults: Smart default constructor parameters (like the styles in window) to minimize the parameters you have to pass in.
  • Constants: Mapping of constants to Ruby symbols to minimize the text and maximize the readability of HotCocoa applications.
  • Constructors: Building the instances of the mapped classes using the correct class-specific APIs.
  • Custom Methods: Ruby-friendly API for commonly used methods (like #<< for #addSubview on NSView subclasses).
  • Delegate Methods: Simplified Ruby-friendly methods for delegating instances that use Ruby blocks

Now that you understand the basics of what HotCocoa is and why we are building it, please look at HotCocoa Resources (and eventually, the HotCocoa Tutorial) for examples of how to build Mac OS X applications with it. For a more detailed understanding of how to read, create, edit, or contribute mapping files, see HotCocoa Mappings. For the current status of the project, visit the code repository on Github.