Eagles Nest BBS 6/Eagles_Nest_Mac_Collection_Disc_6.TOAST/Other Macintosh Text/NIMInfo/New Inside Macintosh Info/New Insdie Macintosh Book

Text File | 1992-06-04 | 19KB | 438 lines

NEW INSIDE MACINTOSH BOOK DESCRIPTIONS

Here are the descriptions of the contents of the individual books that make up
New Inside Macintosh. They're listed in this order:

Overview
Macintosh Toolbox Essentials
More Macintosh Toolbox
Files
Processes
Memory
Operating System Utilities
Text
Imaging
Interapplication Communication
QuickTime
QuickTime Components
Networking
Communications
Devices
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INSIDE MACINTOSH: Overview

Inside Macintosh: Overview is the introductory volume of the Inside Macintosh
series of books.  it provides a general introduction to the Macintosh operating
system, the Macintosh Toolbox, and other system software services that your
application or other software component can use. Everyone who programs
Macintosh computers should read this book.

Inside Macintosh: Overview introduces the Macintosh user interface.  It also
describes the principal programming techniques you can use to develop Macintosh
applications, including

• guiding program execution with the event loop
• storing application data in resources
• storing document data in a data fork
• using relocatable blocks of memory to manage memory efficiently
• sharing processing time and the available memory with other open applications
• sending messages to other open applications
• checking system software capabilities
• handling errors or unexpected occurences safely

Inside Macintosh: Overview also provides an extensive set of guidelines for
writing software that is compatible with all supported Macintosh computers. It
also provides an introduction to the available languages and platforms that you
can use to develop Macintosh software.

INSIDE MACINTOSH: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials

Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials describes how to implement
essential user interface components in your Macintosh application.  The
Macintosh Toolbox is at the heart of the Macintosh, and every programmer
creating a Macintosh application needs to be familiar with the material in this
book.
In particular, this book explains how to

• create menus
• create windows, dialog boxes, and alert boxes
• create controls like buttons and scroll bars
• create icons for your application and its documents
• respond to user actions

This is the first book you should read after you have become familiar with the
basic concepts, programming environments, and “look-and-feel” of the Macintosh.
These introductory topics are discussed in Inside Macintosh: Overview.

When designing your application, you should also consult Macintosh Human
Interface Guidelines for complete information on all aspects of the Macintosh
user interface.

Additional features of the Macintosh Toolbox  —for example, help balloons and
sound—are described in Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: More Macintosh Toolbox

Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox explains important features of the
Macintosh Toolbox that enhance the usability of your application.

It discusses how you can

• support copy and paste
• provide on-line assistance for users with Balloon Help
• play sounds and record sounds
• create scrolling lists in dialog boxes and windows
• create control panels

This book also provides detailed information on how your application can create
and use resources.

To use this book,you should be familiar with the Finder interface, menus,
windows, dialog boxes, and events.  These topics are discussed in Inside
Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Files

Inside Macintosh: Files describes the parts of the Macintosh Operating System
that allow you to manage files and other objects in the file system. If your
application or other software component creates or manipulates files,
directories, or volumes, you should read this book.

Inside Macintosh: Files shows in detail how your application can handle the
commands typically found in a File menu.  This book also provides a complete
technical reference to the File Manager, the Standard File Package, the Alias
Manager, the Disk Initialization Package, and other file-related services
provided by the system software.  With this book, you’ll learn how to

• Create, open, update, save, and close files
• customize the user interface for opening and saving files
• search for specific files or directories on a volume
• obtain information about files, directories,  and volumes
• manage shared files
• keep track of specific files, even if they are moved, renamed, or restored
from backup
• initialize disks and erase contents of previously initialized disks
• perform other advanced file-related operations

To use this book, you should be familiar with the general structure of a
Macintosh application and with basic memory-management techniques.  Both of
these topics are discussed at length in Inside Macintosh: Overview.

Additional aspects of the Macintosh operating system are discussed in  Inside
Macintosh: Memory, Inside Macintosh: Processes, Inside Macintosh: Operating
System Utilities and Inside Macintosh: Devices.



INSIDE MACINTOSH: Processes

Inside Macintosh: Processes describes the parts of the Macintosh operating
system that allow you to manage processes and tasks.  If your application or
other software component needs to get information about other open applications
or execute tasks at interrupt time, you should read this book.

Inside Macintosh: Processes shows in detail how your application  can manage
processes and tasks. It also provides a complete technical reference to the
Process Manager, the Notification Manager, the Time Manager, the Deferred Task
Manager, and other task-related services provided by the system software.  With
this book, you’ll learn how to

• get information about processes
• launch applications and desk accessories
• execute a task after a certain amount of time has elapsed
• execute a task repetitively
• notify the user while your task is in the background
• execute a task between screen refreshes
• execute a routine as part of the shutdown and restart process
• perform other advanced process-related operations

To use this book, you need to be familiar with the general structure of a
Macintosh application and with basic memory management techniques.  Both of
these topics are discussed at length in the book Inside Macintosh: Overview.

Additional aspects of the Macintosh operating system are discussed in  Inside
Macintosh: Files, Inside Macintosh: Memory, Inside Macintosh: Operating System
Utilities, and Inside Macintosh: Devices.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Memory

Inside Macintosh: Memory describes the parts of the Macintosh operating system
that allow you to directly allocate, release, or otherwise manipulate memory.
Everyone who programs Macintosh computers should read this book.

Inside Macintosh: Memory shows in detail how your application can manage the
memory partition it is allocated and perform other memory-related operations.
It also provides a complete technical reference to the Memory Manager, the
Virtual Memory Manager, and other memory-related utilities provided by the
system software.  With this book, you’ll learn how to

• set up your application heap at launch time
• allocate relocatable and nonrelocatable blocks of memory in your application
heap
• avoid heap fragmentation caused by blocks of memory that cannot move
• avoid using dangling pointers and invalid handles
• allocate memory outside your application heap
• be compatible with virtual memory
• avoid using stale data or instructions in the CPU caches

To use this book, you need to be familiar with the general structure of a
Macintosh application.  This topic is discussed at length in Inside Macintosh:
Overview.

Additional aspects of the Macintosh operating system are discussed in Inside
Macintosh: Files, Inside Macintosh: Processes, Inside Macintosh: Operating
System Utilities, and Inside Macintosh: Devices.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Operating System Utilities

Inside Macintosh: Operating System Utilities describes parts of the Macintosh
operating system that allow you to manage various low-level aspects of the
operating system. Everyone who programs should read this book.

Inside Macintosh: Operating System Utilities  shows in detail how to handle a
number of issues that are not specifically related to files, memory, or process
execution.  With this book, you’ll learn how to

• get information about the operating environment
• manage operating-system queues
• handle dates and times
• control the settings of the parameter RAM
• manipulate the trap dispatch table
• receive and respond to low-level system errors

To use this book, you should be familiar with the general structure of a
Macintosh application and with basic memory-management techniques.  Both of
these topics are discussed at length in Inside Macintosh: Overview.

Additional aspects of the Macintosh operating system are discussed in  Inside
Macintosh: Memory, Inside Macintosh: Processes, Inside Macintosh: Files  and
Inside Macintosh: Devices.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Text

Inside Macintosh: Text shows how your application can perform all kinds of text
handling, from simple character display to complex, multi-language text
processing. If you application deals with text of any kind—in any language—you
need Inside Macintosh: Text.

Text provides a brief introduction to the unique Macintosh approach to text
handling, and shows how you can

• draw characters, strings, and lines of text
• work with fonts in any size, style, and language
• use TextEdit, a simple multi-language text editor
• use utility routines to format numbers, dates, and times
• convert formats among different countries or regions
• design your application to handle text in any language
• target your application for a specific country or region
• provide text input in Asian languages such as Japanese

To use this book, you should be familiar with QuickDraw, described in Inside
Macintosh: Imaging, and with the basic Macintosh concepts discussed in Inside
Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.

When designing an application to work with multiple languages, you should also
consult Inside Macintosh: Overview and the Guide to Macintosh Software
Localization.  These books give important guidelines and suggestions for
maximizing worldwide acceptance of your program.

INSIDE MACINTOSH: Imaging

Inside Macintosh: Imaging describes how your application can use QuickDraw and
the other graphics managers to create, display, and print Macintosh graphics.
It provides an introduction to graphics, color,  and varieties of graphic
images, such as bitmaps and pictures.  It discusses how you can

• generate graphic images, in black and white, grayscale, and color
• create pictures, and display them to their best advantage
• create and use palettes of colors specific to your application
• offer dialogs with which users can select colors
• match colors on the screen to the capabilities of various printers
• print your text and image files

To use this book, you should be familiar with the Event Manager, which is
explained in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.

When designing an application to use graphics, you should also consult  Inside
Macintosh: QuickTime  and Inside Macintosh: QuickTime Components.  These books
present  strategies and techniques for incorporating motion into your graphics.

INSIDE MACINTOSH: Interapplication Communication

Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication explains how to make your
application work with other applications to give your application’s users even
greater power and flexibility in accomplishing their tasks.

It provides a brief introduction to how applications work together in a
cooperative environment, and discusses how you can

• share data with other applications
• request information or services from other applications
• respond to scripts written in a scripting language
• allow the user to record actions in a script
• allow the user to automate repetitive tasks

To use this book, you should be familiar with how to respond to user events, as
described in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.

INSIDE MACINTOSH: QuickTime

Inside Macintosh: QuickTime describes how your application can use QuickTime,
Apple’s system software extension that supports time-based data in the
Macintosh desktop environment. Time-based data refers to any information that
changes over time, such as sound, video, animation, data produced by scientific
instruments, and financial results.

It discusses how you can

• manipulate time-based data in the same way that you work with text and
graphic elements

• use the Movie Toolbox to load, play, create, edit, and storeobjects that
contain time-based data

• use image comperssion and de-compression to enhance the performance of the
QuickTime movies in an application.

A companion book, Inside Macintosh: QuickTime Components, describes the
components that are supplied by Apple as a part of QuickTime. These components
augment the capabilities of the QuickTime extension, allowing you to capture
digital video, compress images and sequences, and perform other related
activities.

To use this book, you should be familiar with the Macintosh environment, and
with the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. In particular, you should be
familiar with the Component Manager, which is explained in Inside Macintosh:
More Macintosh Toolbox, and QuickDraw and Color QuickDraw, which are described
in Inside Macintosh: Imaging. If you are going to create QuickTime movies, you
should also be familiar with the Sound Manager, described in Inside Macintosh:
More Macintosh Toolbox.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: QuickTime Components

Inside Macintosh: QuickTime Components  describes the components that are
provided by Apple as part of QuickTime. You should read this book if you are
developing an application that uses QuickTime components, or if you are
developing a component that will be used by QuickTime applications.

QuickTime Components tells you how to
• provide timing signals for QuickTime applications
• compress and decompress images and sequences of images
• allow applications to play movies using a standard  human
    interface
• enable applications to obtain digitized video and sound data and
   write the data into QuickTime movies, using a sequence grabber
   component
• supply an interface between a sequence grabber component and
    the devices that digitize video and sound data
• allow applications to retrieve data from an external device that
produces digital video

To use this book, you must be familiar with QuickTime, as described in Inside
Macintosh: QuickTime, and with the Component Manager, as described in Inside
Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox.  If your component is going to play movies
or compress images, you should be familiar with QuickDraw and Color QuickDraw,
described in Inside Macintosh: Imaging. If your component is going to create
QuickTime movies, you should also be familiar with the Sound Manager, described
in Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Networking

Inside Macintosh: Networking describes how to write software that uses any of
the AppleTalk networking protocols. You need this book if you want to write an
application specifically designed to use AppleTalk, an AppleTalk network
server, or a new networking protocol that is a client of any of the AppleTalk
protocols. This book will also enhance your understanding of Macintosh
communications and collaborative computing products such as the Communications
Toolbox and the PPC Toolbox.

Inside Macintosh: Networking  covers the following topics in detail:

• The components and organization of AppleTalk
• How to select an AppleTalk protocol
•  Application interfaces to all AppleTalk protocols, including Name-Binding
Protocol (NBP), Datagram Delivery Protocol (DDP), AppleTalk Transaction
Protocol (ATP),  Zone Information Protocol (ZIP), AppleTalk Session Protocol
(ASP),  AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP), and AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol
(ADSP)
• The Link Access Protocol (LAP) Manager
• The .ENET driver and Ethernet protocol handlers

Because all AppleTalk protocols are implemented as device drivers, to use this
book you should be familiar with the Device Manager, which is described in
Inside Macintosh: Devices.If you want to design your own protocol to work with
the AppleTalk protocols or if you want to implement an AppleTalk protocol on a
non-Macintosh platform, you should also consult Inside AppleTalk.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Communications
Inside Macintosh: Communications shows how your application can use the Data
Access Manager and the Communications Toolbox to access remote databases and to
create flexible, extensible communications software. If you are creating a
database application, a terminal emulation program, or other communications
program or component, you need Inside Macintosh: Communications.

Communications has two parts. The first part describes how to use the Data
Access Manager to add powerful database capabilities to your application. The
second part describes the Macintosh Communications Toolbox. With the
Communications Toolbox you can create a device-independent and
protocol-independent communications program, one that can

• use any standard method to establish a connection
• transfer files using any standard file-transfer protocol
• perform any standard terminal emulation

 With the Macintosh Communications Toolbox you can also create communications
tools that work with drivers to provide device-independent services to
applications.

To use this book to write database or communications applications, you should
be familiar with the basic Macintosh software managers described in Inside
Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials. To write communications tools, you
should also be familiar with Macintosh device handling as described in Inside
Macintosh: Devices.


INSIDE MACINTOSH: Devices

Inside Macintosh: Devices describes how to write software that interacts with
built-in and peripheral hardware devices. You need this book if you want to
write a Macintosh device driver or desk accessory. You also need this book if
you want to write an application that directly addresses the Macintosh I/O
ports, the Apple Desktop Bus, NuBus cards, or the Power Manager.  Because many
Macintosh managers address the Device Manager directly or indirectly, this book
provides background information that will help you understand such topics as
the File Manager, the Sound Manager, the Printing Manager, and AppleTalk.

Inside Macintosh: Devices provides a brief introduction to device management on
the Macintosh, and covers the following topics in detail:
• Device Manager
• Apple Desktop Bus
• Disk Driver
• Power Manager
• SCSI Manager
• Serial Drivers
• Slot Manager

To use this book, you should be familiar with the fundamental Macintosh
programming concepts explained in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox
Essentials.

When designing an application or device driver that addresses hardware, you
should also consult Guide to Macintosh Family Hardware.  When addressing
expansion cards, you also need Designing Cards and Drivers for the Macintosh
Family.

DSBB: Technical Documentation: New Inside Mac Information
5-12-92