Nibbler RM: Consume .nib files easily from RubyMotion

Disclaimer

This is my personal exploration for consuming .nib files from RubyMotion. It's entirely experimental, undocumented, and unsuitable for any app that will see the light of day. This code is older and hasn't been looked at for some time. For example, there's a very kludgy implementation of define_method which I use to fake dynamisim. This has since been properly implemented in RM.

Purpose

Interface builder can't wire components to ruby code. That leaves the options of tagging everything, searching for controls manually, or building interfaces programmatically. While the last option has seen a lot of work, I like working in IB and with designers that use it. Nibbler is an attempt to simplify the consumption of .xib and .nib files from RM via declarative binding of controls.

Usage

View controller classes deriver from Nibbler::Controller and have class methods for binding to specific elements. For example, the button method accepts a selector argument, which determines which button to bind against (e.g. by title, or position) and a hash specifying how to bind it. In the code below, the following line gives an example of this:

button :seconds, as: 'interval_unit', action: 'select_interval_unit'

Here, a button titled 'seconds' (case insensitive) will be bound to the interval_unit variable and will call the select_interval_unit method on the controller when clicked.

Here's a larger example:

class TimelapseController < Nibbler::Controller
  button :seconds, as: 'interval_unit', action: 'select_interval_unit'
  text_field(1, 
    as: 'interval_field', 
    on: {changed: 'interval_changed:'},
    input_accessory_view: 'numpad_toolbar'
  )
  picker(
    as: 'interval_unit_picker',
    data_source: %w{seconds minutes hours},
    on: {changed: 'interval_unit_changed'}
  )

  def select_interval_unit
    puts "Select interval unit"
    interval_unit_picker.hidden = false
  end

  def interval_changed(sender)
    puts "Interval changed to: #{interval_field.text} #{interval_unit.text}"    
  end

  def interval_unit_changed(item, index)    
    interval_unit_picker.hidden = true
    interval_unit.text = item
  end
end