Use ANE to tie AS3 UI to Objective-C++ engine?

Question

I'm a long time Flash user, (since Future Splash Animator) and though I've got some familiarity with other languages, my main development strength is with using Flash Pro and Flash Builder together to create AS3 websites or AIR apps (iOS or desktop).
Earlier this year, I learned enough C++ to start creating plugins for the music software/DAW Reason. I'd now like to create an iPad version of one of these plugins so that it can be used on an iPad as a MIDI source for other DAWs/MIDI devices.
From what I've read, I can use my C++ code with Objective-C (the result is referred to as Objective-C++ apparently), so I don't need to rewrite the entire software in Objective C.  However, the Rack Extension (what Reason calls its proprietary plugins) SDK took care of the interfacing between the GUI and the C++ code, so I cannot "re-use" the UI portions and will need to rewrite the UI for the iPad.
I don't know how to code in Objective-C, and for the time being, would prefer not to have to learn (or at least in-depth). Rather, if possible, I would love to use AS3 to create the UI.
NativeExtensions seem like they might be the solution. I've not yet used any ANEs though, so I don't have first-hand knowledge of their capabilities and their limitations.
The way I envision this working is the following:
Write my front-end/GUI in AS3 and interface with an ANE to send UI changes to the ANE, and receive events from the ANE to update the UI. The ANE will be written in Objective-C just enough to handle the events to/from the UI, and interface with the CoreMIDI iOS api, and then will rely on the C++ code I already have for the actual functional engine.
Does that sound like it will work?
Thanks,
Brian

Answer 1

CountShockula - Good stuff!! Thank you. Your interface outline and sample code are going to help lots of developers. For the future, you can format your code here by putting it between two {code| tags like this:
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Chris - Please take this advice in the spirit it's intended (to help you out!). At this end it seems like you're spinning your wheels now by trying to develop an understanding of the Cocoa interface without any knowledge of Cocoa. I'm sorry I said "passing familiarity" previously. I did you a disservice as it was tongue in cheek. I understand what you're after. You want to system engineer this design before getting into the details. I took that class too, and it's wonderful when the black boxes are plug compatible like the ones on the white board, but this job isn't gonna work that way.
I would advise you to bite the bullet and learn some Cocoa before trying to draw a box around the interface. You can do that after your engine is built and running on other platforms, or you can do it now. Now would be better in my opinion. But you need to do that. Even if someone wants to give you the complete source for their Cocoa interface, you won't be able to touch one line until you've built some Cocoa projects yourself. You'll find out that hooking C++ up to Obj-C is the least of your design issues. Making a Cocoa interface look the same as a MFC interface is--as I said--not rocket science, but it requires some proficiency with both.
If you're a manager just trying to scope out the job, I'd give you the same advice. Get a Cocoa programmer on the case before you tell anyone the OS/X port has already coded itself.
Sure hope that helps!