Interface Builder
Encyclopedia
Interface Builder is a software development
application for Apple's Mac OS X operating system
. It is part of Xcode
(formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer Connection
developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa
and Carbon
developers to create interfaces for applications
using a graphical user interface
. The resulting interface is stored as a .nib file, short for NeXT Interface Builder, or more recently, as a .xib file.
Interface Builder is descended from the NeXTSTEP
development software of the same name. A version of Interface Builder is also used in the development of OpenStep
software, and a very similar tool called Gorm
exists for GNUstep
. On March 27, 2008, a specialized iPhone
version of Interface Builder allowing interface construction for iPhone applications was released with the iPhone SDK Beta 2. As of Xcode 4, Interface Builder no longer exists as a separate application, and its functionality is directly integrated into Xcode.
using the objected oriented features in ExperLisp, and deeply integrated with the Macintosh toolbox. Denison Bollay
took Jean-Marie Hullot
to NeXT
later that year to demonstrate it to Steve Jobs
. Steve immediately recognized its value, and started incorporating it into NeXTSTEP, and by 1988 it was part of NeXTSTEP 0.8. It was the first commercial application that allowed interface objects, such as buttons
, menus
, and windows, to be placed in an interface using a mouse. One notable early use of Interface Builder was the development of the WorldWideWeb
web browser by Tim Berners-Lee
at CERN
using a NeXT
workstation.
developer. These user interface objects contain items like text fields, data tables, sliders, and pop-up menus. Interface Builder's palettes are completely extensible, meaning any developer can develop new objects and add palettes to Interface Builder.
To build an interface, a developer simply drags interface objects from the palette onto a window or menu. Actions (messages) which the objects can emit are connected to targets in the application's code and outlets (pointers) declared in the application's code are connected to specific objects. In this way all initialization is done before runtime, both improving performance and streamlining the development process.
Interface Builder saves an application's interface as a bundle
that contains the interface objects and relationships used in the application. These objects are archived (a process also known as serialization
or marshalling
in other contexts) into either an XML
file or a NeXT
-style property list file with a .nib extension. Upon running an application, the proper NIB objects are unarchived, connected into the binary of their owning application, and awakened. Unlike almost all other GUI designer systems which generate code to construct the UI (notable exceptions being Glade
, Codegear
's Delphi and C++ Builder
, which stream UI objects similarly), NIBs are often referred to as freeze dried because they contain the archived objects themselves, ready to run. As of Interface Builder version 3, a new file format (with extension .xib) has been added, which is functionally identical to .nib, except it is stored in a flat file, making it more suitable for storage in revision control
systems and processing by tools such as diff
.
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
application for Apple's Mac OS X operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. It is part of Xcode
Xcode
Xcode is a suite of tools, developed by Apple, for developing software for Mac OS X and iOS. Xcode 4.2, the latest major version, is available on the Mac App Store for free for Mac OS X 10.7 , and on the Apple Developer Connection website for free to registered developers Xcode is a suite of tools,...
(formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer Connection
Apple Developer Connection
Apple Developer, formerly Apple Developer Connection or ADC, is Apple Inc.'s developer network. It is designed to make available resources to help software developers write software for the Mac OS X and iOS platforms...
developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa
Cocoa (API)
Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...
and Carbon
Carbon (API)
Carbon is one of Apple Inc.'s procedural application programming interfaces for the Macintosh operating system. It provides C programming language access to Macintosh system services...
developers to create interfaces for applications
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
using a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
. The resulting interface is stored as a .nib file, short for NeXT Interface Builder, or more recently, as a .xib file.
Interface Builder is descended from the NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
development software of the same name. A version of Interface Builder is also used in the development of OpenStep
OpenStep
OpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...
software, and a very similar tool called Gorm
Gorm (computing)
Gorm is a graphical interface builder application. It is part of the developer tools of GNUstep. Gorm is the equivalent of Interface Builder that was originally found on NeXTSTEP, then OPENSTEP, and finally on Mac OS X.Gorm and Project Center represent the heart of the suite for GNUstep...
exists for GNUstep
GNUstep
GNUstep is a free software implementation of Cocoa Objective-C libraries , widget toolkit, and application development tools not only for Unix-like operating systems, but also for Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.GNUstep features a cross-platform, object-oriented development...
. On March 27, 2008, a specialized iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
version of Interface Builder allowing interface construction for iPhone applications was released with the iPhone SDK Beta 2. As of Xcode 4, Interface Builder no longer exists as a separate application, and its functionality is directly integrated into Xcode.
History
Interface Builder first made its appearance in 1986 written in Lisp (for the ExperLisp product by ExperTelligence). It was invented and developed by Jean-Marie HullotJean-Marie Hullot
Jean-Marie Hullot is a French computer scientist and programmer who authored important programs for the original Macintosh, NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X platforms. These include the SOS Interface for the Mac, which later became Interface Builder for NeXTSTEP , and later still evolved into an important...
using the objected oriented features in ExperLisp, and deeply integrated with the Macintosh toolbox. Denison Bollay
Denison Bollay
Denison Bollay is a software engineer working on computer languages and search algorithms, with applications for e-commerce and financial information.-History:...
took Jean-Marie Hullot
Jean-Marie Hullot
Jean-Marie Hullot is a French computer scientist and programmer who authored important programs for the original Macintosh, NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X platforms. These include the SOS Interface for the Mac, which later became Interface Builder for NeXTSTEP , and later still evolved into an important...
to NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
later that year to demonstrate it to Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
. Steve immediately recognized its value, and started incorporating it into NeXTSTEP, and by 1988 it was part of NeXTSTEP 0.8. It was the first commercial application that allowed interface objects, such as buttons
Button (computing)
In computing, a button is a user interface element that provides the user a simple way to trigger an event, like searching for a query at a search engine, or to interact with dialog boxes, like confirming an action.-Description:A typical button is a rectangle or rounded rectangle, wider than it is...
, menus
Menu (computing)
In computing and telecommunications, a menu is a list of commands presented to an operator by a computer or communications system. A menu is used in contrast to a command-line interface, where instructions to the computer are given in the form of commands .Choices given from a menu may be selected...
, and windows, to be placed in an interface using a mouse. One notable early use of Interface Builder was the development of the WorldWideWeb
WorldWideWeb
WorldWideWeb, later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion between the software and the World Wide Web, was the first web browser and editor. When it was written, WorldWideWeb was the only way to view the Web....
web browser by Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
at CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
using a NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
workstation.
Design
Interface Builder provides palettes, or collections, of user interface objects to an Objective-CObjective-C
Objective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.Today, it is used primarily on Apple's Mac OS X and iOS: two environments derived from the OpenStep standard, though not compliant with it...
developer. These user interface objects contain items like text fields, data tables, sliders, and pop-up menus. Interface Builder's palettes are completely extensible, meaning any developer can develop new objects and add palettes to Interface Builder.
To build an interface, a developer simply drags interface objects from the palette onto a window or menu. Actions (messages) which the objects can emit are connected to targets in the application's code and outlets (pointers) declared in the application's code are connected to specific objects. In this way all initialization is done before runtime, both improving performance and streamlining the development process.
Interface Builder saves an application's interface as a bundle
Bundle (NEXTSTEP)
In NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, their lineal descendants Mac OS X, iOS, and in GNUstep, a bundle is a directory that allows related resources such as an application's executable and its graphics to be grouped together, appearing as a single file to the user....
that contains the interface objects and relationships used in the application. These objects are archived (a process also known as serialization
Serialization
In computer science, in the context of data storage and transmission, serialization is the process of converting a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored and "resurrected" later in the same or another computer environment...
or marshalling
Marshalling (computer science)
In computer science, marshalling is the process of transforming the memory representation of an object to a data format suitable for storage or transmission...
in other contexts) into either an XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
file or a NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
-style property list file with a .nib extension. Upon running an application, the proper NIB objects are unarchived, connected into the binary of their owning application, and awakened. Unlike almost all other GUI designer systems which generate code to construct the UI (notable exceptions being Glade
Glade Interface Designer
Glade Interface Designer is a graphical user interface builder for GTK+, with additional components for GNOME. In its third version, Glade is programming language–independent, and does not produce code for events, but rather an XML file that is then used with an appropriate binding .Glade is...
, Codegear
CodeGear
CodeGear is a wholly owned division of Embarcadero Technologies. CodeGear develops software development tools such as the Delphi IDE, the programming language Delphi, and the database server InterBase. Originally a division of Borland Software Corporation, it was launched on 14 November 2006...
's Delphi and C++ Builder
C++ Builder
C++Builder is a rapid application development environment, developed by Borland and owned by Embarcadero Technologies, for writing programs in the C++ programming language. C++Builder combines the Visual Component Library and IDE written in Delphi with a C++ compiler...
, which stream UI objects similarly), NIBs are often referred to as freeze dried because they contain the archived objects themselves, ready to run. As of Interface Builder version 3, a new file format (with extension .xib) has been added, which is functionally identical to .nib, except it is stored in a flat file, making it more suitable for storage in revision control
Revision control
Revision control, also known as version control and source control , is the management of changes to documents, programs, and other information stored as computer files. It is most commonly used in software development, where a team of people may change the same files...
systems and processing by tools such as diff
Diff
In computing, diff is a file comparison utility that outputs the differences between two files. It is typically used to show the changes between one version of a file and a former version of the same file. Diff displays the changes made per line for text files. Modern implementations also...
.
External links
- Apple's Interface Builder description for Cocoa and Carbon development
- Sun's Interface Builder documentation for OpenStep development
- Apple's Nib file documentation