Create an 'order' file on iPad/Objective C w/ auto mailer

I'm currently designing a restaurant based menu system of iPad with the basic functionality of being able to view items on the menu, then add them to an order, be able to review the order (with the possibility of removing them) then finalising a price and (time permitting) be able to email the order to 开发者_开发技巧a specific email address.

Currently I have a split table view with each section of the menu, pictures and text. I am at a roadblock where I can't see how I can proceed with the project.

Firstly, if I have an 'add to order button' underneath the item description, how can I create a new list (or order), how do I display it/edit it?

I'm really stuck as I see no logical way to do this.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

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I'm not sure of your mileage with the Cocoa APIs, but it sound like you are missing some fundamental knowledge about how to effectively work with them. Primarily, I am speaking about the contents of the Cocoa Fundamentals Guide, Model-View-Controller Design Pattern section.

To me, it sounds like you have made good progress on getting the view component of that design pattern, and you are at the point of fleshing out the model and the controller. If you don't understand the terminology, the model essentially encapsulates all of the objects that constitute the domain, which in your case is is "restaurant-based menu systems". Then, the controller piece is concerned with shuffling data from your model to your view and also other general application logic.

Without further requirements about what type of data your app should be concerned with, it's hard to advise you on what you need. You probably want a set of objects that align with the nouns (like Menu, MenuItem, Order, etc.). Then, those objects would have methods that determine how they interact with each other.

Lastly, the controllers (of which you should already have some in your project if you used the Xcode templates) should have a way to manipulate the aforementioned model objects and present the data. The list you mentioned could be something as simple as an Order object which has an NSArray of MenuItems that have been ordered.

So, ultimately my advice would be to read through the Model-View-Controller section in the Fundamentals guide and once you understand it, try creating a model that supports what it is you are trying to achieve. Diagrams or sketches that depict the objects and their interaction help with this. Then once you have done that, you can start to wire your model up with your interface in the controller. Hope this helps.

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There are a few things you are asking here:

1. Adding an item to an order. This implies a purchase cart like solution. These can be quite complex. I'd start with a simple list (NSArray of item numbers?).

2. How to display this list. This would be the visual aspect of the cart. Just think of this as a menu table like you currently have, but with the cart array as a filter.

3. Emailing this information. This is surprisingly easy. Present a modal MFMailComposeViewController after adding a text version of your order as the messageBody.

A further idea would be to expand the cart to use menu item objects that you design in core data. You might also have luck hunting around for a library that encapsulates the needs of the cart for you.

Hope that helps.