Why can’t I just have some kind of substitution token for my App name in my menus? It would be so nice if this was just handled for you. Or even just use preprocessor macros. Or something so I don’t have to build things programmatically.

I’m working on a project which produces various targets, why would I want a separate MainMenu.nib for each target, when except for the App name they are the same (or at least nearly so).

So here’s what I did in my AppController’s AwakeFromNib:

NSEnumerator *menuEnumerator = [[[NSApp mainMenu] itemArray] objectEnumerator];
id menuItem;
  while (menuItem = [menuEnumerator nextObject]) {
    if ([menuItem hasSubmenu]) {
      NSEnumerator *subMenuEnumerator = [[[menuItem submenu] itemArray] objectEnumerator];
      id subMenuItem;
      while (subMenuItem = [subMenuEnumerator nextObject]) {
        NSString *menuTitle = [subMenuItem title];
        [subMenuItem setTitle:[[menuTitle
            componentsSeparatedByString:@"NewApplication"]
            componentsJoinedByString:[[NSProcessInfo processInfo] processName]]];
      }
    }
  }


Maybe you’ll find a use for it somewhere.

StyledWindow now plays properly with Toolbars.

Download

iWeb:

[styledWindow setBorderStartColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.7686 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEndColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.5922 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEdgeColor: [NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.2510 alpha:1.0]];


iMovie HD & iDVD:

[styledWindow setBorderStartColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.7686 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEndColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.5922 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEdgeColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.2549 alpha:1.0]];


iPhoto:

[styledWindow setBorderStartColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.7686 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEndColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.5922 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEdgeColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.4039 alpha:1.0]];


iTunes 7:

[styledWindow setBorderStartColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.7725 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEndColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.5882 alpha:1.0]];
[styledWindow setBorderEdgeColor:[NSColor colorWithDeviceWhite:0.2510 alpha:1.0]];


You can use the Demo App to figure out the heights of the borders.

Those that know me know that talking about stuff isn’t usually a problem, so I’ll just need to work on the discipline of writing about stuff.

But this will really just be a post about posting… not quite. I forgot I had something to share.

And a little workflow you might find useful. I got annoyed about the number of steps required to get an Xcode project posted, so I built an Automater workflow: “Archive Xcode Project”.

Just put it in ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Finder/ (create the path if needed) and you can control-click on an Xcode Project folder and get a nice clean archive ready for distribution. It strips .svn dirs, Build dirs and [username].* foo from your projects and then zips. Nice clean archives for sharing with friends and family.

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Everyone loves the glossy table top reflections in iChat’s video conferencing. Right? Ok, you have to at least admit that you like showing it to your Windows using associates.

So here’s my contribution to virtualizing real life: a category on NSImage that provides you with a reflection of an image. And it comes with a spiffy Demo App so you can fine tune it to get just the right amount of reflection without having to recompile every time.

Download and Enjoy

Download

Note: it uses Chad Weider’s extremely convenient CTGradient class.

Pretty versatile.

But most of us still just use what IB provides. Matt Gemmell released TunesWindow a while back and it provided a great solution to making something a bit more unique. I just thought it could be even more flexible so I built StyledWindow based on it. (thanks Matt!)

And since John Gruber delivered the obituary on the Apple HIG at C4 (and everyone is talking about it: Daniel Jalkut, Uli Kusterer, Michael Tsai, Scott Stevenson, et al), it seems time to release this so everyone can now define their own HIG.

Download and Enjoy.