Keywords: manual

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Subsections

- 2.6.1 The application main nib
- 2.6.2 When to load the main menu gsmarkup
- 2.6.3 When to load the main window gsmarkup
- 2.6.4 When to load other gsmarkup files
- 2.6.5 Renaissance and NSDocument-based applications
  - 2.6.5.1 GSMarkupWindowController
  - 2.6.5.2 GSMarkupDocument

# 2.6 Integrating Renaissance in your application

In this part of manual we examine practical issues involved in integrating Renaissance in your application - in practice, how to write an application which uses gsmarkup files for creating menus and windows. Our main concern here is teaching you the traps and tricks involved in switching from nib/gorm files to gsmarkup files. There is nothing essentially different: the structure and the organization of the application is the same; everything is the same except that you need to load Renaissance files instead of nib ones. A few details might confuse you the first time you try to do it - in this part of the manual we examine all the details step to step to make sure you won't get confused or upset by a small silly detail.

## 2.6.1 The application main nib

Traditionally, an application has a main nib file, and support for automatically loading this nib file at the application startup is built into the system libraries. Because we can't modify the system libraries, if you are using a gsmarkup file instead of the main nib file, you will have to load this gsmarkup file manually. Normally, you would have a main gsmarkup file creating the main menu, and, if needed, another one creating the main application window (if there is one). We now examine those separately in the next sections.

##
2.6.2 When to load the main menu gsmarkup

If you are creating the main menu from a gsmarkup file, you need to load the gsmarkup file as soon as possible, typically in your `main` function. Here is the classical example:

    #include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
    #include <AppKit/AppKit.h>
    #include <Renaissance/Renaissance.h>

    int main (int argc, const char **argv, char** env)
    {
      CREATE_AUTORELEASE_POOL (pool);
      [NSApplication sharedApplication];
      [NSApp setDelegate: [MyApplicationDelegate new]];

      /* Load the menu before calling NSApplicationMain(), because on
       * Apple Mac OS X NSApplicationMain() creates automatically a menu
       * if none is there, and when we try to replace it later, it doesn't
       * really get replaced ... (?)
       *
       * After extensive experiments, loading the menu at this stage is the best
       * way of having it work on both platforms.
       */
    #ifdef GNUSTEP
      [NSBundle loadGSMarkupNamed: @"MainMenu-GNUstep"  owner: [NSApp delegate]];
    #else
      [NSBundle loadGSMarkupNamed: @"MainMenu-OSX"  owner: [NSApp delegate]];
    #endif

      RELEASE (pool);

      return NSApplicationMain (argc, argv);
    }

Please note that in the example we have two separate gsmarkup files for the menu on the different platforms. While it can be clumsy to do so, it's certainly the way which works best at the moment - unless you know what you are doing, it's recommended that you do it this way (and that you check/use default template examples of main menu gsmarkup files). Finally, we set an instance of an hypothetic `MyApplicationDelegate` as the application delegate. That is only an example, but implementing an application delegate custom class can be useful for loading the main window gsmarkup if you need so, as explained in the next section.

## 2.6.3 When to load the main window gsmarkup

If you are creating the main window of your application from a gsmarkup file, I'd suggest to load this file after the application has been launched. That makes sure the window can immediately be displayed on screen.

In practice, you can implement your own application delegate class, and have it implement the

    - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching: (NSNotification *)aNotification;

method. This method will be called when the application has finished launching; you can load the main window gsmarkup from there. For example:

    @interface MyApplicationDelegate : NSObject
    {
      /* ... */
    }
    - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching: (NSNotification *)aNotification;
    @end

    @implementation MyApplicationDelegate
    - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching: (NSNotification *)aNotification
    {
      [NSBundle loadGSMarkupNamed: @"MainWindow"  owner: self];
    }
    @end

Of course, in your `main` function, you need to set an instance of `MyApplicationDelegate` as the application delegate (as demonstrated in the previous section). Please note that this is just a very simple example: depending on how you are organizing the code in your application, you might be loading the `MainWindow` from a different object, or with a different owner - as a classical variant, in `-applicationDidFinishLaunching:` you could be creating a controller object, and that object might be loading the gsmarkup file during initialization.

Renaissance includes full examples of applications demonstrating how to do all this - the first example you should look at is probably the CurrencyConverter example -

    /Examples/Applications/CurrencyConverter

## 2.6.4 When to load other gsmarkup files

You can literally load other gsmarkup files whenever you want. Typically, you simply do -

      /* ... code here ... */
      [NSBundle loadGSMarkupNamed: @"HighScores"  owner: self];
      /* ... more code here ... */

that would load the `HighScores.gsmarkup` file from the main bundle, create the window(s) from the file, using self as the owner (assuming this method call is done inside a method implementation). The owner used when loading is quite important, because instance variables of the owner can be set to point to objects in the window (by using outlets in the gsmarkup file), and vice versa objects in the window can have some of their instance variables (/attributes) set to point to the file owner, so it is particularly natural to use as owner the object which will be interacting more closely and directly with the window while the program is running.

## 2.6.5 Renaissance and NSDocument-based applications

The AppKit contains a set of classes (NSDocumentController, NSDocument, NSWindowController) which are meant to simplify building document-based application. The default implementation uses nib/gorm files to create windows. Renaissance provides subclasses which behave exactly in the same way, but they use gsmarkup files to create windows instead of nib/gorm files. In the next sections we will examine these subclasses.

### 2.6.5.1 GSMarkupWindowController

Renaissance provides `GSMarkupWindowController` - a subclass of NSWindowController which behaves exactly in the same way as NSWindowController does, but that creates the window from a gsmarkup file rather than from a nib/gorm file.

So, if you want to use NSWindowController with Renaissance, instead of using NSWindowController, you just need to use GSMarkupWindowController; the API is precisely the same. You can subclass a GSMarkupWindowController in the same way as you subclass a NSWindowController.

It's worth making an example of a gsmarkup file which can be loaded by a GSMarkupWindowController:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <!DOCTYPE gsmarkup>

    <gsmarkup>
      <objects>
        <window id="window">
          <!-- ... your code here ... -->
        </window>
      </objects>

      <connectors>
        <outlet source="#NSOwner" target="#window" key="window"/>
      </connectors>
    </gsmarkup>

Please note the outlet which sets the window outlet of the NSOwner to the window objects in your file (in practice, it calls `[#NSOwner setWindow: #window]`) - it's essential that you have this outlet in your file, or it won't work. It's the same outlet that is required in a nib/gorm file which is meant to be loaded by a NSWindowController.

Please refer to the NSWindowController documentation for more information on using window controllers.

### 2.6.5.2 GSMarkupDocument

Because the default implementation of NSDocument uses NSWindowController (which is only able to load nib/gorm files, and not gsmarkup files), Renaissance provides `GSMarkupDocument` - a subclass of NSDocument which uses GSMarkupWindowController instead of NSWindowController, and so which uses gsmarkup files instead of nib/gorm files. `GSMarkupDocument` behaves exactly in the same way as NSDocument, but uses GSMarkupWindowController to load windows from files.

So, if you want to use Renaissance with NSDocument, instead of using NSDocument, you just need to use GSMarkupDocument; the API is precisely the same. You can subclass a GSMarkupDocument in the same way as you subclass a NSDocument.

In a typical document-based application, you add entries to the application `Info.plist` describing the type of files/documents that your application can manage (TODO: make examples); you then load your main menu at startup (as explained in section 2.6.2). Actions in the `File` menu will typically be about creating, opening, saving, printing document. You should probably start with a standard document menu copied from a template.

Finally, you implement a subclass of GSMarkupDocument able to read/write those data; you override `windowNibName` to return the name of the gsmarkup file (without the `.gsmarkup` extension) to use to create the window which the user can use to edit the data. Make sure the gsmarkup file sets the window outlet of the NSOwner to point to the window (as described/exemplified in the example code in the previous section).

Please refer to the documentation on NSDocument for more information; the Renaissance distribution provides complete examples of document-based application built using Renaissace which can be a useful starting point - for example

    Examples/Applications/Ink
    Examples/Applications/SimpleEditor

Next: 2.7 Object tag reference Up: 2. The GNUstep Markup Previous: 2.5 The GSMarkup NSBundle