Welcome to the WWDC '96 release of Inside Macintosh for Mac OS 8. This Read Me provides a road map to the chapters within this folder, provides information on viewing the Acrobat files contained within this folder, and lists the methods you can use to give us your feedback on the Inside Macintosh documentation.
Road Map To Inside Macintosh For Mac OS 8 Documentation
The chapters in the folder Inside Macintosh for Mac OS 8 provide preliminary information on many of the constants, data types, and functions for developer use in Mac OS 8. The chapters present overviews or introductions that cover the human interface, Apple events, file navigation and access, text handling, the microkernel, and I/O. In addition, reference chapters for many managers and services are also provided. Each file in the folder represents a book. Figure 1 shows the book titles and the chapters contained within each book.
Figure 1. Books and chapters in the folder Inside Macintosh for Mac OS 8
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Road Map For Applications
For information on the features of Mac OS 8 for applications, read the following chapters and books:
* For an overview of new features supported by the Toolbox, such as human interface objects, panels, window groups, imaging objects, and themes, see the chapter "Introduction to the Mac OS 8 Toolbox" in Human Interface Toolbox. For reference information on human interface objects, see the chapter "HIObject Class Reference" in Human Interface Toolbox.
* For an overview of how Apple events are used pervasively throughout Mac OS 8 by system services as well as other programs, see the chapters "Introduction to the Mac OS 8 Event Model" and "Event Model Reference" in Apple Events in Mac OS 8. For information on how Apple events are processed by the Toolbox, see "Toolbox Event Routing" and "Toolbox Events Reference" in Human Interface Toolbox.
* For an overview of the Mac OS 8 microkernel, including information on tasks, processes, scheduling, preemption, multithreading, allocation of memory, and other services, see the chapter "About Mac OS 8" in Microkernel and Core System Services. See subsequent chapters in Microkernel and Core System Services for reference information on many of these topics.
* For information on the Mac OS 8 File Manager, Navigation Services, and other file services, as well as reference information on the Mac OS 8 File Manager, see File Navigation and Access.
* For information on the extensive support for text handling that enables you to develop your application for a worldwide market, such as support for Unicode, locales, and the use of text objects, see "Introduction to Text Handling and Internationalization" in Text Handling and Internationalization.
* For information on creating resources that are new in Mac OS 8, see ResEdit 3.0 User's Guide.
* For information related to human interface elements in an application, see Human Interface Guidelines for Mac OS 8 and Apple Grayscale Specification for System 7.5.
* For information on the use of the System Object Model (SOM) in Mac OS 8, see Software Extensibility.
Road Map For Server Programs And Extensions
For information related to server programs and extensions, read the following chapters and books:
* For an overview of the Mac OS 8 microkernel, including information on tasks, processes, scheduling, preemption, multithreading, allocation of memory, and other services, see the chapter "About Mac OS 8" in Microkernel and Core System Services. See subsequent chapters in Microkernel and Core System Services for reference information on many of these topics.
* For an overview of how Apple events are used throughout Mac OS 8 by system services as well as other programs, see the chapters "Introduction to the Mac OS 8 Event Model" and "Event Model Reference" in Apple Events in Mac OS 8.
* For information on the Mac OS 8 File Manager, see File Navigation and Access.
Road Map For Drivers
For information related to drivers and I/O devices, read the following chapters and books:
* For information on the Mac OS 8 I/O architecture, including information on families, plug-ins, and I/O services, see "About the I/O Architecture" in Modular I/O. For information on families for specific hardware devices, see subsequent chapters in Modular I/O. For updated information on Open Transport, see Open Transport.
Other Documentation
For an overview of Mac OS 8 from the user's perspective, along with a tour of the major components in Mac OS 8, see Mac OS 8 Revealed in the Mac OS 8 Information folder.
For additional information on Mac OS 8, see the Mac OS 8 web site. Also check the Mac OS 8 Web site for additional reference chapters as they become available.
Viewing the Electronic Documentation
This documentation is provided in Acrobat format so that you can both print and electronically view the information.
Quick Tips for Acrobat Viewing
The Acrobat files in the Inside Macintosh folder have been built with bookmarks. Bookmarks provide a navigatible table of contents for the entire document. The bookmark window is displayed to the left of the document's text. If this window is not showing, choose the Bookmarks and Page command (or Command-7) from the View menu to display it. You can expand and collapse the triangle controls to view the document contents; click any heading in the Bookmarks window to go directly to that page. Choose the Page Only (Command-6) from the View menu to hide the Bookmarks window. You can also quickly toggle between Page Only and Bookmarks and Page view by clicking the leftmost icon in the toolbar (for Page Only) or the icon immediately to its right (for Bookmarks and Page).
Within a document, cross-references that include a page number are hot links; that is, clicking anywhere in the cross-reference takes you directly to the indicated cross-reference. For example, page 1-10 of "Introduction to the Mac OS 8 Toolbox" contains this text:
* For an introduction to the default routing provided by the Toolbox, see "Toolbox Event Routing" (page 2-3).
Clicking anywhere in the phrase "Toolbox Event Routing" (page 2-3) takes you directly to page 2-3 in the chapter "Toolbox Event Routing".
The entries in the Table of Contents for each chapter are also hot links. You can click any heading in the Table of Contents to go directly to that page.
For quick navigation, Command-5 is the keyboard combination for the Go To Page... command. Command-2 and Command-3 are the keyboard combinations for the Previous Page and Next Page commands. You can also use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys to display the previous page and next page.
Where to Send Feedback On Inside Macintosh For Mac OS 8 Documentation
We welcome your feedback on the Inside Macintosh for Mac OS 8 documentation provided on this CD. Please send your feedback to dpfeedback@applelink.apple.com or visit the Mac OS 8 web site and fill out the feedback form located there.
Acrobat is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated or its subsidiaries and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. NuBus is a trademark of Texas Instruments. SOM and System Object Model are licensed trademarks of IBM Corporation.
