Michael Beam - Cocoa in a Nutshell

Project Builder and Interface Builder are the two most importantapplications used in Cocoa development. ProjectBuilder is the interactive developmentenvironment (IDE) for Mac OS X used to manage and edit source files,libraries, frameworks, and resources. Additionally, it provides aninterface to the Objective-C compiler, gcc, andthe GNU debugger, gdb.

Interface Builder is usedto create GUIs for Cocoa applications by allowing developers tomanipulate UI components (such as windows and buttons) graphicallyusing drag and drop. It provides assistance for laying out componentsby providing visual cues that conform to ApplesAqua Human Interface Guidelines. Froman inspector panel, the behavior and appearance of these componentscan be tweaked in almost every way the component supports. InterfaceBuilder provides an intuitive way to connect objects by letting theuser drag wires between objects. This way, you set up the initialnetwork of objects in the interface. In addition, you can interfacewithout having to compile a single bit of code.

Interface components are not the only objects that can be manipulatedwith Interface Builder. You can subclass any Cocoa class and createinstances of the subclasses. More importantly, you can give theseclasses instance variables, known as outlets ,and methods, called actions , and hook them up to user interfacecomponents. Interface Builder can then create source files for thesesubclasses, complete header files, and an implementation fileincluding stubs for the action methods. There is much more toInterface Builder and Project Builder than we can cover in this book,but as you can begin to imagine, the tight integration of these twoapplications create a compelling application development environment.