[Pyobjc-dev] Wild idea #17: Extra functionality for NibClassBuilder

[Jack J. <Jac...@cw...>]

As a typical (well, somewhat typical) novice user there's one problem 
that I keep running into with PyObjC: it is very difficult to 
undeerstand code that comes from a third party.

For example, I'm now looking at iClass and Just's two browsers, and 
while the code itself is minimal and pretty understandable it doesn't 
really tell me all that much, because all the high-level "code", the 
stuff that glues the world together, is really in the NIB file.

Running NibClassBuilder from the command line helps a little bit, in 
that it at least tells me what the relevant classes are, but this isn't 
really enough, what I need to know are connections and such.

What then occurred to me is that all the action really occurs when 
awakefromnib is called (at least: I assume this is when it happens, 
correct?), and the info on what occurs is in the nib. So, we should be 
able to create a Python rendition of what will happen when awakeformnib 
happens. This would be only for documentary purposes, but the Python 
rendition would show the objects being created and the connections 
being made, something like (example taken from iClass):

	Window = NSWindow()
	# Need code here to show the objects in the window and the names
	# we use for them in this code
	Window.item_NSTextField_0 = NSTextField() # Title: framework
	Window.item_NSTextField_1 = NSTextField() # Pos: (309, 442, 397, 17)
	# ...
	MainMenu = NSMenu()
	# ...
	Model = ClassesDataSource()
	Model.frameworkLabel = Window.item_NSTextField_1
	# ...

Is this doable? Is it a good idea?
	
--
Jack Jansen, <Jac...@cw...>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman