macOS How to design your own Cocoa UI control?

[antoinem]

Hi,

I'm really interested in developping apps for Mac OS and I've been starting creating small apps for 4 months now.
I read the excellent "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Hillegass but unfortunately I'm a bit frustrated by the UI controls offered by default in XCode.
I'd like to design my own controls but I don't know where to start. I searched the Web (and numerous Cocoa Developers WebSites) but I didn't find what I was looking for...

Does anybody know some relevant stuff (tutorials, books, ...) about UI control design in Cocoa ?

Thanks a lot !

Antoine

 

[Cromulent]

Hi,

I'm really interested in developping apps for Mac OS and I've been starting creating small apps for 4 months now.
I read the excellent "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Hillegass but unfortunately I'm a bit frustrated by the UI controls offered by default in XCode.
I'd like to design my own controls but I don't know where to start. I searched the Web (and numerous Cocoa Developers WebSites) but I didn't find what I was looking for...

Does anybody know some relevant stuff (tutorials, books, ...) about UI control design in Cocoa ?

Thanks a lot !

Antoine

Not sure of any specific resources, but be very careful with this. If a Mac application does not look Mac like (i.e you have used too many custom controls) many Mac users will reject it. I'm not saying your controls will look ugly, but it is generally a good idea to follow the Apple User Interface Guidelines as they define what a Mac OS X application should look like and how it behaves. If your application strays too far from that, expect a negative reception.

Just a word of warning really, sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.

 

[antoinem]

Not sure of any specific resources, but be very careful with this. If a Mac application does not look Mac like (i.e you have used too many custom controls) many Mac users will reject it. I'm not saying your controls will look ugly, but it is generally a good idea to follow the Apple User Interface Guidelines as they define what a Mac OS X application should look like and how it behaves. If your application strays too far from that, expect a negative reception.

Just a word of warning really, sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.

Thx for the answer !
Yes, sure, I don't want to redraw basic controls (buttons, sourcelists, checkboxes...) but I want to add new specific controls that does not exist. For instance new subclass of NSCells to display data in a more fashion way than with just text...
For example, in the official BT client for Mac OS, you have a TableView in which each cell embeds some text, a progress bar, one or two buttons...
I'd like to be able to recreate such controls...

 

[crees!]

Not sure of any specific resources, but be very careful with this. If a Mac application does not look Mac like (i.e you have used too many custom controls) many Mac users will reject it. I'm not saying your controls will look ugly, but it is generally a good idea to follow the Apple User Interface Guidelines as they define what a Mac OS X application should look like and how it behaves. If your application strays too far from that, expect a negative reception.

Just a word of warning really, sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.

Very true, but, learning down to create your own and seeing how they work is more knowledge and power to you. So I'd say there's nothing wrong with trying, especially if it's a control that's none other suits your needs.

 

[antoinem]

Very true, but, learning down to create your own and seeing how they work is more knowledge and power to you. So I'd say there's nothing wrong with trying, especially if it's a control that's none other suits your needs.

yes, that's why I wanted to learn about this...