IFSheetController - by Itai Ferber - [email protected]

Introduction

IFSheetController is a simple library that provides services for an application that wants fine-grain control over using sheets. Using IFSheetController, it's very easy to set up and deploy as many sheets as necessary for an application. For the most part, IFSheetController is an attempt to bring Brandon Walkin's excellent BWSheetController up to date.

IFSheetController uses Mike Ash's MAZeroingWeakRef, and includes the files along with a copy of their BSD license. No customization is necessary, just a copy of MAZeroingWeakRef.h and MAZeroingWeakRef.m will suffice (the files have been edited very slightly to behave differently if Automatic Reference Counting is turned on - read the ARC section for more info).

Setup

The workflow of setting up a controller goes like this:

1. In Interface Builder, lay out and create the parent and sheet windows, complete with interface controls.
2. Create a new NSObject and set its class to IFSheetController.
3. Connect the parentWindow and sheet outlets of the sheet controller to your parent and sheet window respectively. If you have a delegate set up, connect it to the delegate outlet on the controller.
4. Connect any interface items to the methods of the sheet controller to open or close the sheet.

If you've made a mistake along the way, and have set the sheet controller's error reporting level to 1 (as opposed to 0), it will let you know about any errors it encounters (and attempts to recover from). If the error reporting level is set to 0, it will silently either ignore the affected areas (if allowed), attempt to repair the issue, or abort if no other option is available.

Automatic Reference Counting

This project is compatible with Clang's Automatic Reference Counting feature, available in Apple Clang 3.0 (included in Xcode 4.2). If the __has_feature(objc_arc) macro expands to 1 in the preprocessor, all -retain, -release, and -autorelease calls will be removed from the file and replaced with equivalent ARC-compatible code. Because ARC allows for the use of the __weak specifier, MAZeroingWeakRef is not needed for weak references, and since MAZeroingWeakRef will not compile under ARC, it has been modified to not compile if ARC is turned on. You may even remove MAZeroingWeakRef completely from the project if you have ARC turned on to slim the project down.

App Store

No code included in IFSheetController makes use of private APIs, but special care is to be taken with MAZeroingWeakRef. The copy of MAZeroingWeakRef included with the sample project has its 'hackery' level set to 0 (it won't trip off any problems with App Store submissions), but if you decide to include your own copy, make sure COREFOUNDATION_HACKERY_LEVEL is indeed set to 0.

Source Code

The project source code is available on GitHub (in fact, you're most likely already viewing it there):

http://github.com/itaiferber/IFSheetController/

The source code is bundled under an MIT license, so you're pretty much free to do with it as you wish.

More Information

Additional documentation can be found in the source code, if needed (header files are extensively documented). Any outstanding questions you might have will be gladly taken at my email address (supplied above).

Enjoy!