Haxe Native Apple Development
This haxelib is used by the Basis haxelib https://github.com/Randonee/Basis
This project uses hxcpp and CFFI to allow the use of native Apple UI components.
Haxe is being compiled to c++ then CFFI is used to communicate with objc. This incurs an overhead for any objc method called. Inheritance is also missing functionality. Overriding methods on haxe equivalent objc classes will not override the objc class method. This is because the haxe classes are just bridges to objc classes rather than sub classes. If inheriting from an objc class is needed you will need to create an objc class and use CFFI to communicate with it. This CFFI approach is hopefully a temporary solution. Once an objc haxe target is complete AppleBasis will use it.
For the most, part Apple's documentation can be used. Differences are outlined bellow.
Deleting Objects
You must call destroy on any basis object you create and want to remove. Because references to objects are stored so communication between hxcpp and objc is possible, objects are not removed until you call their destroy() method.
Method Names
Method names are a combination of the selector name and all argument descriptors. For example:
The selector:
- (void)setLeftBarButtonItem:(UIBarButtonItem *)item animated:(BOOL)animated
would become:
setLeftBarButtonItemAnimated(item:UIBarItem, animated:Bool):Void
Delegates and Data Sources
You can not set delegates the same way you can in cocoa. Rather than set a delegate object you would set individual handler function. For example, UITableView handlers would be set like this:
var table:UITableView = new UITableView();
table.dataSource.titleForHeaderInSectionHandler = titleForHeaderInSection;
table.dataSource.numberOfSectionsInTableViewHandler = numberOfSectionsInTableView;
table.dataSource.numberOfRowsInSectionHandler = numberOfRowsInSection;
table.dataSource.cellForRowAtIndexPathHandler = cellForRowAtIndexPath;
table.delegate.didSelectRowAtIndexPathHandler = didSelectRowAtIndexPath;
private function titleForHeaderInSection(tableView:UITableView, section:Int):String
{
return "Section Title";
}
... the rest of the functions would follow.
Events
Events are quite a bit deferent than in cocoa. In cocoa you would use NSNotificationCenter or use addTarget on a specific class. With BasisApple you use addEventListener. To listen to a touch event on a button you would do the following.
var sampleButton:UIButton = UIButton.buttonWithType(UIButton.UIButtonTypeRoundedRect());
sampleButton.addEventListener(UIControl.UIControlTouchUpInside(), onButtonTouchUp);
private function onButtonTouchUp(object:IObject, type:String):Void
{
trace("button touched");
}
Event type constants have the same name as used in cocoa and are defined in the same classes (UIControlTouchUpInside is defined in UIControl.hx)
Copyright (c) 2013 Basis Contributors
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