How do I use Core Data with the Cocoa Text Input system?
- by the Joel
Hobbyist Cocoa programmer here. Have been looking around all the usual places, but this seems relatively under-explained:
I am writing something a little out of the ordinary. It is much simpler than, but similar to, a desktop publishing app. I want editable text boxes on a canvas, arbitrarily placed.
This is document-based and I’d really like to use Core Data.
Now, The cocoa text-handling system seems to deal with a four-class structure: NSTextStorage, NSLayoutManager, NSTextContainer and finally NSTextView. I have looked into these and know how to use them, sort of. Have been making some prototypes and it works for simple apps.
The problem arrives when I get into persistency. I don't know how to, by way of Cocoa Bindings or something else, store the contents of NSTextStorage (= the actual text) in my managed object context.
I have considered overriding methods pairs like -words, -setWords: in these objects. This would let me link the words to a String, which I know how to store in Core Data. However, I’d have to override any method that affects the text - and that seems a little much.
Thankful for any insights.
