[EXPERIMENTAL] A ruby method that looks for all accessibility labels in all the xib files in the resources directory of a RubyMotion project, create auto-incrementing tags for those elements, and create a ruby file mapping constants named after the labels

helpers.rb

# OPTIONAL: I'm not sure method_missing is ok in RubyMotion projects??

class UIView
  def method_missing(meth, *args, &block)
    if Kernel.const_defined? meth.upcase
      viewWithTag(Kernel.const_get(meth.upcase))
    else
      super
    end
  end
end

Rakefile

task :labels do
  require './xib_labels'

  XibLabels.process
end

xib_labels.rb

require 'nokogiri'

class XibLabels
  def self.process
    d  = Dir.new("resources")
    d.each { |entry|
      next unless /xib$/.match entry

      f = File.open("resources/#{entry}")
      doc = Nokogiri::XML(f)
      f.close

      labelMap = {}

      labels = doc.xpath("//string[@key='IBUIAccessibilityLabel']")
      tagCounter = 1
      labels.each { |label|
        puts "Found: #{label.content}"
        tag = label.xpath("../../int[@key='IBUITag']")[0]
        if !tag
          parent = label.xpath("../..")[0]
          tag = Nokogiri::XML::Node.new "int", doc
          tag['key'] = "IBUITag"
          parent.add_child tag
        end
        tag.content = tagCounter
        labelMap[label.content.upcase] = tagCounter
        tagCounter += 1
      } 
      File.open("resources/#{entry}",'w') {|f| doc.write_xml_to f}

      labelsOutput = ""
      labelMap.each { |k,v|
        labelsOutput += "#{k} = #{v}\n"
      }
      File.open('app/label_tag_map.rb', 'w') {|f| f.write labelsOutput }
    }
  end
end

EXPERIMENTAL: Backup anything you try this on!!!!

This is a method of making xib files easier to work with in RubyMotion projects. To get started with using them, check out: http://ianp.org/2012/05/07/rubymotion-and-interface-builder/ but note that as of RubyMotion 1.3 the step involving ibtool is handled automatically by the RubyMotion compiler if the xib file is saved in the resources folder.

Where this gist comes in is that it will generate tags for every UI element that has an accessibility label written and give you a ruby constant that can be easily used to get a reference to those elements in your code (by running 'rake labels' )

So, instead of: view.viewWithTag(7) (where 7 might be the tag number you assigned to a view element) you can write view.viewWithTag(ADD_ENTRY_BUTTON) assuming you have a UIButton with an accessibility label of "add_entry_button"

Taking this a step further, (although not sure this is a real great idea) you could open the UIView class and add a method_missing for even easier access and get references to your elements with simply: view.add_entry_button