Topic
Cocoa
A browsable archive of writing and notes across the site.
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A few notes on LetsMove
When you download a Mac app from the web, it usually ends up in your Downloads folder. But some apps really need to live in /Applications to work properly — self-update being the …
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XPC Services
About XPC I’ve been doing some work in this area lately, so here are my notes — a quick recap of what XPC is and how it works. XPC is the umbrella term for inter-process …
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How to generate a NSViewController without a Nib?
Recently, I created all the ViewControllers through the storyboard or the Nib (for views). Today, when I created a demo project without any Nib file, the ViewController did not …
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A Swift quiz
A puzzle showed up on Twitter the other day. It exercises overload resolution and type(of:) together. This is just a note for myself; I’ll write up MetaType separately. // …
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Libraries and frameworks
Most of us have a rough mental model of what a library and a framework are. This post lays out the basics — not every byte, just enough to be useful. I covered the broader compile …
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Build Process
A programming language goes through roughly five stages on its way to a running program, each with its own tool: Preprocessor Compiler Assembler Linker Loader Let’s walk …
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Building a little utility: Swwwitch
I saw something making the rounds in the dev community recently, so I built a small tool — a quick way to consolidate a few Cocoa-app features I’d been meaning to try. …
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How Mac apps launch at login
Launching at login is one of the most common features for a Cocoa app — especially the menu-bar utilities that are meant to be always-on. Let’s walk through how to add this …
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How do dockless Mac apps work?
Menu-only apps are one of the most common patterns in Cocoa-land. They don’t take up a spot in your Dock, they don’t get in the way when you’re switching across …