NSMenu problems showing/hiding HUD NSPanel

Still having great difficulty with this problem. Any suggestions?

I cannot find a simple tutorial online that explains the basics of NSPanel windowing as different from NSWindow.

I have an HUD window that I'd like to show as a notification & input box, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how. My attempts are below.

I know this is a poorly phrased and overly broad question; being new to Objective C and Interface Builder, I do not quite yet have my feet wet enough to be more specific.

In relevant part: AppController.h

@interface AppController : NSObject {

    IBOutlet NSMenu *statusMenu;
    IBOutlet id HUDPanel;


    IBOutlet NSTextField *HUDTextField;
    IBOutlet NSTextField *HUDLabel;
    IBOutlet NSProgressIndicator *HUDSpinner;

    NSStatusItem *statusItem;
    NSImage *statusImage;
    NSImage *statusHighlightImage;  

}


- (IBAction)recognizeCurrentLocation:(id)sender;

- (IBAction)saveButtonPressed:(id)sen开发者_如何转开发der; 

- (IBAction)newLocationMenuItem:(id)sender; 

- (IBAction)HUDPanelHide:(id)sender;

- (IBAction)HUDPanelShow:(id)sender;



@end

In relevant part: AppController.c

- (IBAction)HUDPanelHide:(id)sender{
    [HUDPanel close];
}

- (IBAction)HUDPanelShow:(id)sender{
    [HUDPanel makeKeyAndOrderFront:self];
}

And I am fairly sure that my linking in IB is correct - I followed a tutorial to set most of this up, and menu items that I have assigned to other actions are properly executing.

The tutorial I found was here:

http://www.mataderu.com/xphere/info/cocoa_tut02/OpenGLrules.zip

Apparently my answer was that I was not creating a "utility window" - e.g. I had an *.xib instead of a *.nib file.

I'm not sure why this makes a difference so perhaps more explanation from an expert would be worth noting here.

Otherwise, my code was exactly what it should be.