PyObjC
NodeBox is built on PyObjC, a bridge between the Python and Objective-C programming languages. The primary usage of PyObjC is writing Cocoa applications for Mac OS X in pure python. Cocoa is the programming environment on Mac OS X that allows developers to create graphical applications with a typical Apple-look-and-feel.
Cocoa's two main libraries (Foundation Kit and Application Kit) are bundled with NodeBox. If you know a little PyObjC it's easy to start playing around with all the magic in Mac OS X, right from your NodeBox script.
This tutorial contains advanced material.
AppKit manual
The first thing you'll notice about AppKit is that it has a lot of long and odd objects all beginning with NS: NSBezierPath, NSRect, NSImage, and so on (the NS stems from the fact that AppKit is a direct descendant of NeXTSTEP, Steve Jobs' technology that revived Apple).
Commands like layoutManager.drawGlyphsForGlyphRange_atPoint_(glyphRange, (x-dx,y-dy-self.font.defaultLineHeightForFont())) are common. So the first thing to do is get a manual. I recommend using AppKiDo. It requires that you've installed Xcode, the Apple developer tools. Usually you'll find these on the installation CD that came with your Mac.
AppKit rules of thumb
AppKiDo lists all of the objects in their Objective-C form. To use them in Python, a good rule of thumb is to replace the colon with a dash (e.g. setShadowBlurRadius:(float)val becomes setShadowBlurRadius_(floatval) ).
Another good thing to know is that you create AppKit objects with object.alloc() and then initialise them with object.init() or object.initWithARangeOfParamaters().
Also note that some things that are in Foundation like NSSize or NSRect can usually be substituted by simple Python tuples.
To start using AppKit in NodeBox simply import the library:
from Appkit import *
I'll show you some examples of what you can do with AppKit.
Playing sounds in NodeBox
The NSSound object in AppKit provides a very easy way to play AIFF and WAV sound files in Mac applications. The class below is a NodeBox wrapper for NSSound.
from AppKit import NSSound class sound: