How to bind a property to an external controller?

Question

I work with the SDK 10.6, with Xcode 4.2.

I want to bind a "property" to a controller that exists "out of my nib". How could I do :

• with Interface Builder ?
• without it ?

More precisely, I want to bind the enabled property of a NSButton to an arrayController that exists "out of my nib". The only objects to which I can bind properties, in interface builder, are the placeholders or the objects. But :

• I cannot change the placeholders.
• If I had an arrayController to my NIB, it will be created when my NIB is loaded.

Why am I in this situation ? Because : the arrayController is in my NIB ; but the button is in another NIB. This second NIB is a subview of my main view.

Thanks for help :)

Answer 1

I think that I found an answer.

Some notations :

• MySubiewController and MySubiewController.xib are the couple of objets where I want to perform some bindings. They have to be thought as a subview.
• Somewhere else in my program, "above", I have already an myMainArrayController. It is an ArrayController, linked with my data, and "created in my main view".

Now : the answer.

• First, for instance via the init method of MySubiewController, store your myMainArrayController in some variable (you have to expose this variable in the .h, as a @property (it's better) before using it in your program). Let's give the same name to this variable (you could give any name). For instance :

   - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil 
                 bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil 
    withArrayController:(NSArrayController *)anArrayController
  {
      NSLog(@"Creation of an instance of MySubiewController");
  
  
      self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
      if (self) {
          myMainArrayController = anArrayController ;
      }
  
      return self;
  }
  

  This is where you will tell to your "subview" who is the arrayController already exisiting.

• Do your bindings with File's Owner and then self.myMainArrayController.

• That's it!!! It should work!