Creating a Cocoa application without NIB files

This is the method I use in my applications. Sorry for the formatting, I hope you can make it out. I don’t know how to turn off the auto-formatting here.

Of course there will be no functioning main menu out of this example, that’s far too much code for me to write on a post like this :P - Sorry, out do some research on that ;)

This should get you started:

AppDelegate.h

@interface MyApplicationDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate, NSWindowDelegate> {    NSWindow * window;}@end

AppDelegate.m

@implementation MyApplicationDelegate : NSObject- (id)init {    if (self = [super init]) {        // allocate and initialize window and stuff here ..    }    return self;}- (void)applicationWillFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)notification {    [window makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];}- (void)dealloc {    [window release];    [super dealloc];}@end

main.m

#import "AppDelegate.h"int main(int argc, char * argv[]) {    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];    NSApplication * application = [NSApplication sharedApplication];    MyApplicationDelegate * appDelegate = [[[[MyApplicationDelegate]alloc] init] autorelease];    [application setDelegate:appDelegate];    [application run];    [pool drain];    return EXIT_SUCCESS;}

int main() {    [NSAutoreleasePool new];    [NSApplication sharedApplication];    [NSApp setActivationPolicy:NSApplicationActivationPolicyRegular];    id menubar = [[NSMenu new] autorelease];    id appMenuItem = [[NSMenuItem new] autorelease];    [menubar addItem:appMenuItem];    [NSApp setMainMenu:menubar];    id appMenu = [[NSMenu new] autorelease];    id appName = [[NSProcessInfo processInfo] processName];    id quitTitle = [@"Quit " stringByAppendingString:appName];    id quitMenuItem = [[[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:quitTitle    action:@selector(terminate:) keyEquivalent:@"q"] autorelease];    [appMenu addItem:quitMenuItem];    [appMenuItem setSubmenu:appMenu];    id window = [[[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect:NSMakeRect(0, 0, 200, 200)    styleMask:NSTitledWindowMask backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered defer:NO]    autorelease];    [window cascadeTopLeftFromPoint:NSMakePoint(20,20)];    [window setTitle:appName];    [window makeKeyAndOrderFront:nil];    [NSApp activateIgnoringOtherApps:YES];    [NSApp run];    return 0;}

Though this is a few years old question...

Here's minimal code snippet to bootstrap a Cocoa application in Swift.

import AppKitfinal class ExampleApplicationController: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {    let window1 =   NSWindow()    func applicationDidFinishLaunching(aNotification: NSNotification) {        window1.setFrame(CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 800, height: 500), display: true)        window1.makeKeyAndOrderFront(self)    }    func applicationWillTerminate(aNotification: NSNotification) {    }}autoreleasepool { () -> () in    let app1        =   NSApplication.sharedApplication()    let con1        =   ExampleApplicationController()    app1.delegate   =   con1    app1.run()}

Also, I am maintaining a bunch of programmatic examples for Cocoa including bootstrapping, window, menu creations.

• CocoaProgrammaticHowtoCollection

See subprojects for desired language.

• Swift examples
• Objective-C Examples