iOS Use Interface Builder or not?

[beeh]

I've been using Interface Builder for my apps so far and have found it not so bad, although took some time to get used to how to connect graphical objects to the code. But, many of the examples ( well all of them really ) show code that does not use IB, but defines all the graphical objects in the code.

In all of the code I have done, I have always leaned towards not using tools like IB, but, as I mentioned before, I have been trying to use it, because it seems helpful.

Now, that being said, from all the experienced Xcode developers out there, is it better to use IB or not? Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[liptonlover]

I hate IB. Don't get me wrong, it's great. It is sooooo helpful. But I hate hate hate hate hate anything that makes coding easier. Because the more of that you do, the less writing you have to do, the easier it is for any old kid to pick up some tools and "generate" the same thing I spent days coding by hand. I think programming should be purely code writing. But, since people insist on creating tools to make it easier, I'll use them. No sense in being left behind... So yeah. Use it. It's very useful.

 

[hayesk]

I hate IB. Don't get me wrong, it's great. It is sooooo helpful. But I hate hate hate hate hate anything that makes coding easier. Because the more of that you do, the less writing you have to do, the easier it is for any old kid to pick up some tools and "generate" the same thing I spent days coding by hand.

That's an elitist attitude, don't you think? This same line of reasoning was used against desktop publishing, digital photography, and countless other industries.

Not to mention there are many "good" programmers that can code very well, but can't design a user interface to save their lives. IB lets good UI designers and good programmers work together to make better software.

In my opinion, anything that puts tools in the hands of more people is a good thing. If you truly are a good programmer, your apps will shine through as the crap gets weeded out fairly quickly.

 

[robbieduncan]

I find IB really useful when programming for Mac OSX, but for some reason I just can't get with it for the iPhone. I'm just doing it all in code. Only takes a few minutes to get the interface I want...

 

[kainjow]

I started out writing all the UI in code but that was when IB was really weak for iPhone development. It's gotten a lot better though but still I find it a bit confusing even though I've been doing Cocoa for a while. It gets tiring writing UI code all the time by hand, so IB helps out a lot.

 

[richard.puckett]

I've been wanting to ask this question, myself. Good to see some opinions.

In my own experience (which isn't much yet relative to many on here) is that I've been using IB less and less. I still use it when I need to lay out some UI components in a certain way - but even then, the simulation cycle is so fast that it could be manually tweaked in code at roughly the same rate.

The iPhone also makes use of more high-level components (like the nav bar) and generally has a simpler UI so it's often easier to describe the interface in code than it is for other mobile platforms.

The IB seems like a really nice solution to a problem that doesn't so-much exist in the first place.

 

[jeremy.king]

If you don't use IB, do you still create XIBs (I would assume by hand)?

I noticed after download the Wordpress source that the UI components in the xib didn't even seem to be laid out.

 

[liptonlover]

@ kingjr3 - No... you would just create objects in various classes you've created. Have you ever created an NSString instance in code? It'd be just like that, only you'd also have to use methods to set the title, size, location, and all sorts of stuff like that that IB makes easy.

I think anything good should be hard to make by default. I "wrote" an app, not very good but a working app that's useful for some people, and I did it all in IB and with a core data model. Not one bit of coding. And it only took about 10 minutes. How is that right? I didn't even work! Anyone could have done it. I don't know... I may just have a problem but it still doesn't seem right.

 

[PhoneyDeveloper]

liptonlover, if that's your real name. I think you're just giddy because the NDA has been lifted. Stop showing off. I think it's clear that all the IB-haters have no sense of humor.

I have ten minutes free. I think I'll go write monkeyball II using IB.

 

[t0mat0]

liptonlover, if that's your real name. I think you're just giddy because the NDA has been lifted. Stop showing off. I think it's clear that all the IB-haters have no sense of humor.

I have ten minutes free. I think I'll go write monkeyball II using IB.

Any chance of updating Kroll whilst you're at it? It needs a bit of non-linear play to it

 

[admanimal]

I think anything good should be hard to make by default. I "wrote" an app, not very good but a working app that's useful for some people, and I did it all in IB and with a core data model. Not one bit of coding. And it only took about 10 minutes. How is that right? I didn't even work! Anyone could have done it. I don't know... I may just have a problem but it still doesn't seem right.

Why not use IB anyway and use your super skills and the time you saved to add other awesome features that the average joe can't think of and/or implement in 10 minutes?

 

[cemorris]

Thiking about not using IB

I have an application in the works and have been using IB. After creating about 20 screens, I now have a dilema. What if I want to change the look and feel across my entire application. With IB, I need to go into every screen and make the same changes. Where as in code, I can simply use a global variable to make one change everywhere. Anyone have a good solution for this problem? Thinks makes me think I should have done everything in code.

 

[admanimal]

I have an application in the works and have been using IB. After creating about 20 screens, I now have a dilema. What if I want to change the look and feel across my entire application. With IB, I need to go into every screen and make the same changes. Where as in code, I can simply use a global variable to make one change everywhere. Anyone have a good solution for this problem? Thinks makes me think I should have done everything in code.

Keep in mind that you are still free to use code to change the properties of objects you create in IB, and you can add other objects to views you create in IB. So if you are just talking about changing a color or adding a button or something, you can still do that in code and have everything else done with IB.

 

[firewood]

Note that from code, you can still hide, redisplay, or change any IB objects at runtime.

 

[liptonlover]

you guys are making something serious a joke... I know you get what I'm saying lol. Sure you're not going to write monkey ball 2 easily because of IB, but you get the point. And you could do it with one of those game engines. IB really isn't the biggest problem I have at all, it's mostly the other stuff. But why be exclusive? But whatever... it doesn't matter anyways. And I'm not giddy about the nda, actually. It hasn't affected me yet and now it never will, fortunately But I am happy that they are lifting it.

 

[firewood]

In practice, I've found that any complex or rich iPhone application will have so much in code that the little bit saved by using IB is almost unnoticeable. (e.g. I don't do tip calcs).

So I might still mock-up a dummy of a UI in IB before sending the screenshots off to a graphics artist for final production polish. But now I mostly just use IB to generate the bare window and view xibs, and do everything else in code, especially so that I can control and modify the UI elements at runtime, if needed, with everything about these elements in searchable text files.

.

 

[wizard]

Never got a handle on IB!

Really! Now I'm new to Mac and iPhone programming but to be perfectly honest I don't have a grasp on IB at all. Nor do I want to know why Apple came up with such a confused app as that.

Of course being that my first exposure to IB was with respect to iPhone programming that didn't help. Maybe a good tutorial and a bug free app would have changed my mind but it looks to me like Apple went out of it's way to make IB difficult to use.

Honestly if Apple wants to have a graphical interface builder it needs to be tied in better with the IDE. Right now IB really seems to be a negative with respect to rapid development on iPhone. It can be much faster to simply code everything up in one place, with IB code is all over the place.

All in all I don't really like IB right now. I just find it to be a very foriegn and abstract way to accomplish anything. It might grow on me in the future but right now I simply rely on sample Apple code and building what I need out of code.


Thanks dave

 

[Taum]

Hi,

Honestly if Apple wants to have a graphical interface builder it needs to be tied in better with the IDE.

No, seriously, it doesn't. I agree that IB for iPhone is confusing, but it's not about being tied up with XCode. IB for the Desktop is much more straightforward to use IMHO, but isn't any more tied up into XCode.

I think the main problem with IB for the iPhone is that the ViewController paradigm doesn't work so well in IB. I hope this will mature with the next release : keep in mind that IB for the desktop has been there since the NeXT days, if I'm not mistaken (for that matter, I wasn't even *born* then ).

There is also a clear lack of tutorials on how things are supposed to work with IB, which might just start to get better since the NDA is getting lifted. It wasn't obvious at all for me how IB was supposed to work for Cocoa apps until I saw a few video tutorials... and then I felt like I could never go back to hand-coding a UI. I guess it will be the same for the iPhone.

 

[liptonlover]

hmmmm is it really confusing for you? It may just be because I was already a programmer and had used IB for the mac before checking out the iphone sdk, but I thought it was easier than the mac ib stuff. Then again, I don't use it except to lay out the interface, or at least the way it'll start, and to do some connections. I usually have an AppController class, so I just make an instance of that in IB. That's the extent of my use.

 

[CPlusPlusMan]

I hate interface builder because in order to make the interface relatively easily.... you HAVE to use IB... apple will not give you a choice. I think it's great that I can make my apps in a graphical environment.... but It feels really childish to do so... I learned how to program because I wanted to be a programmer.. someone who types in code and makes applications out of code... not crayons. I wanna be a programmer.... not a two year old. sometimes it's worth it to save the time and build the interface in IB, but most of the time I wanna see a list of those connections in a file, see the layout objects and see the widget objects. I want a text file listing those things which I edit to change how my application looks and behaves... I wanna hand code it. because that's what I am comfortable with... that's what I signed up for... not IB crayons.... it's BS and apple needs to make an easy way to hand code interfaces... and it's not like they can't, because Qt proves you can.. using C++ no less... and that's only one of the things that the whole dev environment has that really pisses me off.... among a lot of other things.
I just think it's stupid!!!!!!!! Give me some real coding damnit! oh well.
Apple hates it's devs and especiallly devs who use something other than Obj-C (like C++ devs, apple's favorite.

 

[CommanderData]

I hate interface builder because in order to make the interface relatively easily.... you HAVE to use IB... apple will not give you a choice. I think it's great that I can make my apps in a graphical environment.... but It feels really childish to do so... I learned how to program because I wanted to be a programmer.. someone who types in code and makes applications out of code... not crayons. I wanna be a programmer.... not a two year old. sometimes it's worth it to save the time and build the interface in IB, but most of the time I wanna see a list of those connections in a file, see the layout objects and see the widget objects. I want a text file listing those things which I edit to change how my application looks and behaves... I wanna hand code it. because that's what I am comfortable with... that's what I signed up for... not IB crayons.... it's BS and apple needs to make an easy way to hand code interfaces... and it's not like they can't, because Qt proves you can.. using C++ no less... and that's only one of the things that the whole dev environment has that really pisses me off.... among a lot of other things.
I just think it's stupid!!!!!!!! Give me some real coding damnit! oh well.
Apple hates it's devs and especiallly devs who use something other than Obj-C (like C++ devs, apple's favorite.

What are you talking about? You don't HAVE to use IB at all to make even the most complex applications and view layouts. It is very easy to code by hand... easier than screwing around with interface builder for me

Just start in applicationDidFinishLaunching and create your viewController (and NavigationController if necessary), create your window, create your views. In your views initWithFrame method you can code the layout of that view (buttons, text, subviews, etc). Of course people who use IB regularly will scoff at this and exclaim how difficult that would be, but it really isn't at all, and the control you have over everything is great!

 

[Taum]

No offense, but creating the objects in code does not give you any more control over things. It doesn't give you any less tho, so I agree with you: pick whichever you're more comfortable with.

For me IB is nice because I can create an interface as complex as needed, and only worry about what actually needs worrying in code. My controller classes are not polluted with components that relate only to the view.
Eventually I find IB really helps embracing the MVC pattern, which is kinda wicked

I learned how to program because I wanted to be a programmer.. someone who types in code and makes applications out of code... not crayons. I wanna be a programmer....

Great, then go write lines and lines of code.

No one said you had to use the hammer if you'd rather nail it with your bare hands....

Apple hates it's devs and especiallly devs who use something other than Obj-C (like C++ devs)

... but then, don't complain that it hurts

Besides, you're argument is plain stupid. Ever tried to do .Net with Java? Qt with Objective-C? It just wouldn't make sense, so why do you want to write Cocoa code in C++? (which, incidentally, is probably the easiest of these three examples).

 

[adamk77]

I don't understand this argument at all.

IB is great. You don't have to waste time aligning controls, pixel by pixel, recompiling and running it ad infinitum to see if you've got it right. It's a great tool.

There are instances where IB can't be used, or is impractical to use. Then I switch to doing it in code.

I sometimes even switch back and forth or mix the two depending on my mood.

I really hope CPlusPlusMan was making a joke.

 

[CPlusPlusMan]

What are you talking about? You don't HAVE to use IB at all to make even the most complex applications and view layouts. It is very easy to code by hand... easier than screwing around with interface builder for me

Just start in applicationDidFinishLaunching and create your viewController (and NavigationController if necessary), create your window, create your views. In your views initWithFrame method you can code the layout of that view (buttons, text, subviews, etc). Of course people who use IB regularly will scoff at this and exclaim how difficult that would be, but it really isn't at all, and the control you have over everything is great!

.... wait.... you can do that?... How'd you learn how to do that? can you show me?

 

[CPlusPlusMan]

I don't understand this argument at all.

IB is great. You don't have to waste time aligning controls, pixel by pixel, recompiling and running it ad infinitum to see if you've got it right. It's a great tool.

There are instances where IB can't be used, or is impractical to use. Then I switch to doing it in code.

I sometimes even switch back and forth or mix the two depending on my mood.

I really hope CPlusPlusMan was making a joke.

Learn Qt sometime if you know C++... in Qt, I can hand code the interface quite easily... literally you create objects of the controls, add them to layouts using methods and then nest the layouts and controls together to create a final interface which you then layout on the window... Qt handles all the pixels and everything like that for you and makes things look dead shmexy... I can do the same thing in an IB like tool but it preserves the programming tasks because while you can use the IB to manage signals and slots (just like IB with the connections) you can also do everything quite easily in code without a single ui file.... and it's actually fun... so much so that most Qt programmers just hand code the interface in Qt because it's not hard, and it's fun and easy. Admittedly, sometimes it's good to be able to lay out things in IB... but telling programmers not to program and instead use a magical tool where they do everything but define the controller class which has next to no real programming.... it's a joke! it's like saying "here... go to school and learn how to become the next Da'Vinci" and then after they graduate, when they go to practice their art in the real world, you say "here, use these crayons. you get nothing else unless you wanna do things the hard way" now granted, in IB your apps look as professional as hand coded if not better, but still... you learned how to program, I assume, because you like to write code... so why are you now so thrilled with a tool that makes it so you don't have to do what you love and studied sooo hard to learn how to do because you were that passionate about it.... It's madness! It's your passion all for naught.... yes I can go to visit any number of places around the country by flying there.... but that's boring, everyone goes places by plane.... I wanna go on a road trip... they're a lot more fun and I'll get a lot more out of the experience then if I just fly there... in the same way, I studied hard how to program in C++ and BASIC and Java and C# and C and Obj-C because I Love programming... I love sitting at my computer writing code... I hate how apple seems to think it's a good idea to take that away by magic so that the lazy programmers here who hate coding and would rather just be code monkeys for money who just wanna do the least work and claim to be a programmer can do just that... It's not fair and it's insulting to us who love our jobs as programmers... who love debugging our code because it's a neat puzzle for us... who love inventing, innovating, and doing new things that no one ever thought of before... Programming is Computer Science.... but it's also computer art... and I love practicing my art....and anything that tries to take that art away from my with some magical tool the prevents me from writing code I stand against as a programmer. so vehemently so that if I were to attend the cocoa bootcamp and I knew how to handcode my interfaces, I'd handcode my interfaces rather than use the damn Interface Builder.. because it's a chance to practice my art and show off my art... it's doing what I love and what I was created to do. Even if the teacher (in this case Aaron Hillegass) threatened to fail me for it, I'd still hand-code the interface. I was not joking and I'm not joking... I don't want apple taking that from me because it's more convenient for lazy pseudo-programmers who hate coding and want to do as least of it as possible. If that's really how you approach programming and the art you're supposedly so passionate about, then you need to get out of computer science and learn something else that you will feel passionate about, something you will want to do as much as possible. because if it's not coding, then you're not a programmer!