Interface Builder is bad and getting worse

Developer Tools & Services General Interface Builder

Chilton OP

Created Dec ’15

Replies 33

Boosts 1

Views 13k

Participants 17

Hi,

I've been a Mac developer since the late 80's. I've had my name on somewhere around 500 commercial products spanning every part of Mac and iOS software. I ran the largest Mac source code repository on the planet (4Gb of raw source code on DevHQ) until Dr. Dobb's Journal took it over. My point is that I've been here for a long time now.

This morning I spent *FOUR F*CKING HOURS* trying to make a @#$# button correctly span the width of a view, without screwing up everything else I delicately placed in the view.

This is *PAINFUL*.

Unity3D, by comparison, has an almost effortless UI system. I mocked up *THIS* UI in Unity so I could test it, before trying to make it work in Xcode. Think about that.

This is shameful. Look, Interface Builder has never been particularly *great* at UI design, but it wasn't this bad.

I know it's not just me. Every client I've worked with in the last five years has had problems navigating Interface Builder. Every time there's an update, I pore over the documentation and try to figure out what *BROKE* and what new, stupider, way of handling UI issues you've invented. I do this because my clients call within days of each major Xcode update to ask how to do something they used to do.

And if I'm having problems with this, I guarantee this is a stumbling block for new users.

Here's a simple solution: The last time I was at WWDC, you had a team of UI specialists I could go sit with who would help me find roadblocks my users might encounter in my UI. Please, Apple, have your UI specialists spend some quality time on Interface Builder.

Have some **** pride, people.

Now I'm going to go randomly click on crap and see if I stumble over something that works better than following the directions.

-Chilton

Answered by HyperNovaSoftware in 92843022

I do everything in code so I can place everything exactly how I want it.

IB is a complication I'd rather not deal with.

Boost

eminemthegenius OP

Jan ’17

If you've used a system that allows you create the UI using code

such as Visual Studio on Windows

you find that as a coder, you enjoy the transparency and control

IB helps you get things up quickly

but it hides too much

i.e. they've taken the abstracting out of the details a bit too far

making simple things easier to do

but complicating any transgressions of the usual way of doings

Visual Studio for example also enables you to go visual (hence the name)

but it also lets you go pedal to the metal and generate your whole UI in code

IB/Cocoa doesn't really let you do that

at least not in a way evident to a beginner

eminemthegenius OP

Jan ’17

I would go so far as to say:

InterfaceBuilder should be augmented with a code based access to Cocoa

that requires no other files to store UI representations

to keep things transparent and simple

and instead of requiring new programmers to learn Objective-C

this should be done in C++

which most students learn in college anyways

There is such a wrapper in Open Source called WxWidgets

but it's a little complicated because of its cross platfrom design target

ejh237 OP

Dec ’22

Clinton,

Found this searching: "Is Apple making XCode Interface worse on purpose?"... I to am have been writing software on Apple devices since the late 80's... Earlier this year, I finally gave up on XCode, and am living a post Stockholm Syndrome life with Appcode as my primary IDE for the iOS development I do. I wish I had found this years ago. I only use Xcode for IB and building. If i could be 100% free of this mess, I would. Hope you found a happier life.

Apple: stop everything!

-eric