NSWindowController windowDidLoad not called

Question

I have a simple Cocoa app using a NSWindowController subclass. In the nib I have set:

• File Owner's class to my NSWindowController subclass
• The 'Window' outlet of the File's Owner to the main NSWindow in the nib.

The init method of my NSWindowController subclass is called (I call super), but not matter what I do windowDidLoad is never called.

I must be missing something obvious, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is.

Answer 1

You're trying to create the instance of NSWindowController by instantiating it in another nib. However, when you instantiate an object in a nib file, it is initialized by calling -initWithCoder:.

-initWithCoder: is not a designated initializer of NSWindowController, so your instance of NSWindowController never actually loads its nib.

Instead of instantiating your NSWindowController instance by placing it in the MainMenu.xib file in Interface Builder, create it programmatically:

In AppDelegate.h:

@class YourWindowController;
@interface AppDelegate : NSObject
{
    YourWindowController* winController;
}
@end

In AppDelegate.m:

@implementation AppDelegate
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification*)notification
{
    winController = [[YourWindowController alloc] init];
    [winController showWindow:self];
}
- (void)dealloc
{
    [winController release];
    [super dealloc];
}
@end

In YourWindowController.m:

@implementation YourWindowController
- (id)init
{
    self=[super initWithWindowNibName:@"YourWindowNibName"];
    if(self)
    {
        //perform any initializations
    }
    return self;
}
@end

Answer 2

It's perfectly fine to instantiate the window controller through a nib. Rather than use windowDidLoad as your hook, in that case you'll want to use awakeFromNib.

Answer 3

The window might be loaded on demand - try sending window to yourself in -init. See the discussion of -[NSWindowController loadWindow] in the documentation for more info.

Answer 4

if you wrote

TTEst *test3 = (TTEst *)[[NSWindowController alloc] initWithWindowNibName:@"TTEst"];

try instead

TTEst *test3 = [[TTEst alloc] initWithWindowNibName:@"TTEst"];

it makes the difference ! Of course the first line was a mistake...