Question

Is this a good practice, to have one xib (Document xib), and many nswindowcontrollers and nsviewcontrollers.
This is better because, you don’t have to bind properties between multiple xibs

But what about cons?

Answer 1

Cons are:

• You have to load the entire nib, so even if you only need one of the windows, you have to load them all.
• Complex nibs can get unwieldy.
• The “File Owner” is your document instead of your window controller, which encourages you to circumvent the window controllers, binding and connecting the view directly to the model.

When you have one nib per window, the file owner is usually the window controller, which brokers access to the document or exposes it as a property. Sometimes you do want to bind e.g. array controllers and object controllers to the document, but accessing it through the window controller gives you an opportunity to monitor the dependencies.