DPSetupWindow
DPSetupWindow makes it easy to add setup style modal sheets or windows to your Objective-C and Cocoa applications on Mac OS. Simply create a set of view controllers and DPSetupWindow will take care of moving between them, as each performs its validation and allows the process to continue.
Inspriation for this was taken from Mac OS installer applications and Mail.app's account configuration process.
Usage
DPSetupWindow
is designed to be very easy to use. The example application
distributed with the source code should provide enough documentation on how to
use it, but here is an overview.
Firstly create the setup window with an array of view controller for it to use. A callback must also be provided, which will be called when the window closes, passing back a boolean representing whether the user reached the end of the process or not.
DPSetupWindow *setupFlow = [[DPSetupWindow alloc] initWithViewControllers: @[
firstViewController,
secondViewController,
thirdViewController
] completionHandler:(void (^)(BOOL completed) {
[setupFlow orderOut:self];
}];
There are two ways to use the setup window, either as a modal sheet where the developer can control all aspects as would be normal, or as a standard window.
// Modal sheet
[[NSApplication sharedApplication] beginSheet:setupFlow
modalForWindow:[self window]
modalDelegate:nil
didEndSelector:NULL
contextInfo:NULL];
// Regular window
[[self setupFlow] makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];
The window can be customised with a background image, the default being your application's icon.
[setupFlow setBackgroundImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"NSUserAccounts"]];
The setup process can also be set to funnel the representedObject
property of
each view controller along to the next as a way of moving state between stages.
This is not enabled by default and can be set by calling
setFunnelsRepresentedObjects:
on the setup process window.
Each view controller in the setup process must implement the optional
DPSetupWindowStageViewController
protocol.
This protocol gives the view controller the ability to stop the user from going
backwards or forwards by implementing the canContinue
and canGoBack
boolean
properties. Button titles can also be overridden, for example you may want the
last stage to say "Finish" instead of "Continue", in which case the last view
controller should contain the following.
- (NSString *)continueButtonTitle {
return @"Finish";
}
In order to make the setup process consistent with other similar windows, a fixed size of window is used, and therefore the views owned by the view controllers have a fixed size of 400×330 points.
View controllers can implement -setSetupWindow:
either as a method or a
synthesized property in order to access the setup window. This allows them to
change the setup process or control it in code as it is being used. For example,
the first view controller will add a different controller to be used in the next
stage when willProgressToNextStage
is called depending on whether the user
selects 'basic' or 'advanced' setup.
Being able to programmatically advance or revert the setup process may be useful in the case of contacting web services for authentication. An intermediate 'loading' controller may be used where the continue and back buttons are disabled, this controller can move to the appropriate stage based on a response from a web service.