NSTabView - selector not recognized using selectLastTabViewItem and friends

Question

Hi, I'm new to Xcode, Cocoa, and Objective-C (not new to development though). I am using Xcode 2.4.1 on OS X 10.4.11.
I've gotten on pretty well doing general stuff with most of the widgets, but I'm hung up trying to do something (commonplace) with tabs. I have a NSTabView with 3 tabs, and want to force one of them to become the active tab.
After a couple hours of screwing with this, I have created a new Xcode project just to test selectLastTabViewItem on a NSTabView. This is exactly what I do:
1) In Xcode, create new Cocoa application project.
2) Add class Controller there
3) Open the MainMenu.nib
4) In IB, drop the Controller.h file so it appears with the classes.
5) Instantiate a Controller class
6) Drop a NSTabView in the Window
7) Create an outlet of NSTabView type for Controller
8) Click and drag from Controller instantiated object to the NSTabView object in the GUI - connect it as an outlet. I've verified this has added properly, and in the list of outlets it picks up the "type" of NSTabView i.e. Under Controller's Connects, I see NSTabView (Tab, View)
9) Create code for Controller, Overwrite code in Xcode with this. (No more work done in IB)
10) Back in Xcode, edit the source and make Controller.m read as follows:
#import "Controller.h"
@implementation Controller
// Simplest case is to have this code run when awakeFromNib happens
// I've also tried it tied to a button click action
- (void)awakeFromNib
[tabView selectLastTabViewItem]; // select the Tab View Item called 'View'...
// I've used the other similar methods, such as the one that selects tab view based on
// identifier. I get the same error with all of them, this one seems easiest to debug
// since there's the least involved
@end
What I get is:
[Session started at 2009-08-02 16:00:12 -0400.]
2009-08-02 16:00:12.955 NSTabViewTest[10808] * -[NSTabView selectLastTabViewItem]: selector not recognized [self = 0x3515f0]
2009-08-02 16:00:12.956 NSTabViewTest[10808] An uncaught exception was raised
2009-08-02 16:00:12.956 NSTabViewTest[10808] * -[NSTabView selectLastTabViewItem]: selector not recognized [self = 0x3515f0]
2009-08-02 16:00:12.956 NSTabViewTest[10808] * Uncaught exception: <NSInvalidArgumentException> * -[NSTabView selectLastTabViewItem]: selector not recognized [self = 0x3515f0]
I've looked up code online and I don't seem to be doing anything different than examples, although I don't know what their nib's look like.. any help would be wonderful. Thanks!
Message was edited by: Robert Is Confused, fixing to use code tags

Answer 1

Hi Robert, and welcome to the Dev Forums!
selectLastTabViewItem: takes one arg which passes the sender's address to the tabView.
- (void)awakeFromNib { // this line starts with a -, but apple forum prevents it
NSLog(@"Controller awakeFromNib");
[tabView selectLastTabViewItem:self]; // select the Tab View Item called 'View'...
I think your compiler should have given you a warning: 'NSTabView' may not respond to '-selectLastTabViewItem'. These are easy to miss if you don't have your Build Results window open, since the warning bubble may not show up in the source editor until that window is reselected.
Btw, there's a yellow alert notice in the 1st slot of the forum topics page with code formatting instructions in the subject line (and a link to lots of other handy formatting tricks). You can see how your post will look by clicking the Preview tab on top of the Reply editor panel. If you reply to my post, click the double-quote icon under Preview to see exactly how my message was formatted.
- Ray