Echographia

Here’s a simpler version of that last post using Rich Kilmer’s HotCocoa library. I also use the approach I suggested at the end of the last post: Build a menu each time it’s requested, instead of trying to keep one at the ready.

Starting again from the end of the ADC MacRuby/Cocoa tutorial, we first need to make HotCocoa available to our program. At the top of Controller.rb:

require 'hotcocoa'

That defines the HotCocoa module; now, to make its methods available to our class:

class Controller
  include HotCocoa
  ...
end

And here’s the method to build and return a new Dock menu on request:

  def applicationDockMenu(sender)
    menu do |dock|
      @friends.each do |friend|
        dock.item(:remove_friend,
          :title => "Remove #{friend.first_name} #{friend.last_name}",
          :action => 'removeFriend:',
          :representedObject => friend
        )
      end
    end
  end

(The :remove_friend symbol is sort of superfluous in this application. It’s used to generate default values for the menu item’s title ("Remove Friend") and action ("on_remove_friend:"), but because we’re generating a different menu item for each friend, and they’re all implemented with the same action, those defaults won’t do. The symbol can also be used to look up a menu item by name, for example to delete it from the menu, but we’re not doing that.)

Oh yes, and that remove_friend action - the same as last time, only we don’t delete the menu item:

  def removeFriend(sender)
    friend = sender.representedObject
    @friends.delete(friend)
    @friendsTableView.reloadData
  end

Now all we have to do is tell Cocoa that Controller is our application delegate, which we do the same way as last time: In Interface Builder, control-drag from File’s Owner to Controller, and then select the delegate outlet.

As I said in the previous post, I don’t know whether building a menu each time and then hoping someone else throws it away is really kosher. For now, I’m hoping that even if it is a memory leak, menus are small enough resources, and Dock menus are used rarely enough, that it won’t be a serious problem. But somebody should look into that.