How to allow loadView to be sent to my NSViewController?

Question

Having discovered that awakeFromNib is begin called multiple times, I tried to implement loadView in the following way to prevent (nib loading) initialization from repeatedly occurring, with:

- (void)loadView {
    [self viewWillLoad];
    [super loadView];
    [self viewDidLoad];
}

Looks like a good trick to allowing certain arrays and properties to be set-up in viewWillLoad, but loadView absolutely won't be called.

Why?

I've done much research about this here and through google.

Answer 1

You're not receiving a loadView message because you have this VC and its view in the same nib, with the VC's view outlet set to the view. Since the VC already has a view, it has no reason to go load another one.

Answer 2

loadView is typically not called if you are using a nib (since view is already set). But the real question is why you're trying to fight the view loading process this way. If awakeFromNib is being called multiple times, that suggests you have multiple instances of this class. Each will get a call to awakeFromNib (that is expected behavior). If this is surprising, you should dig into why you have multiple instances. But you shouldn't try to subvert the view-loading mechanism like this.