(Cocoa Mac) NSWindowController showWindow allocates/initializes a new NSWindowController?

Question

I have a class BrowserWindowController that extends NSWindowController. My app delegate has a BrowserWindowController that it allocates, initializes, and points an instance variable at when the app is launched. Then, it displays its window. The goal is to have a window from a NIB show up.

However, the code I am using ends up allocating TWO BrowserWindowControllers and initializes both. I have used the debugger to track down when BWC's initWithWindow method is called:

browser = [[BrowserWindowController alloc] initWithWindowNibName:@"BrowserWindow"]; //this calls initWithWindow as expected
[browser showWindow:nil]; //this allocates ANOTHER BWC and calls initWithWindow on it!

showWindow is making a new BrowserWindowController. I don't know what points to the new object it makes. It's a huge problem for me. Any way to get around this or make the window show up using a different method? Or could I at least get a pointer to the controller that showWindow creates for whatever reason?

Answer 1

Worst solution ever. The problem was that I had a property in my controller called "owner" that was an NSString. NSWindowController already has an "owner" property, and I overlooked that. Somehow, that caused the NIB loader to make a second controller with no accessible pointer to it and do some other weird things.

So I renamed it, and it works now. Thank goodness... I was tearing my hair out with this problem.

Answer 2

Did you check the condition like this and try?

if !(browser)
{
browser = [[BrowserWindowController alloc] initWithWindowNibName:@"BrowserWindow"]; //this calls initWithWindow as expected
[browser showWindow:nil];
}