This month brings a new version of our prototype Apple HTML Local Search application, and a wide selection of Inside Macintosh, Macintosh Technical Q&As, and several other books in HTML format for you to test it with. HTML appears to be the Next Big Format for our technical documentation, and HTML Local Search is how we'll be providing searching capability for local files, so now is the time to try them out and let us know what you think via the survey included; it will be seriously passé to complain about them once we've officially adopted them. ;-)
In addition to updates to the Macintosh Technical Notes and the Gestalt Selectors List, here are this month's new and revised items.
Apple Grayscale Appearance: The Apple Grayscale Appearance for System 7.5 specification provides the information you need to create a grayscale appearance for System 7.5 products. It consists of an Acrobat document and two folders of SimpleText files of enlarged graphics showing the details of human interface elements.
This version of Apple Grayscale Appearance for System 7.5 contains an updated appearance for the disabled state of all windows, dialog boxes, and controls. In response to feedback from developers and users regarding the difficulty of distinguishing active windows from inactive windows, we have changed the appearance of all inactive windows and disabled controls. This updated appearance gives users better feedback about inactive windows and dialog boxes. It also provides more affordance in the active windows and enabled controls.
This version of the document also contains the appearance for tab panels (tabs and content panes) which appear in dialog boxes. It shows tabs in small and large sizes.
Developer Notes: This month features a new note about the LaserWriter 12/640 PS Printer. The LaserWriter 12/640 PS printer is a new member of the Apple Computer LaserWriter printer family. This developer note describes the features and capabilities of the printer and is intended for use by software and hardware developers.
Inside Macintosh: Inside Macintosh is a collection of books, organized by topic, that describe the system software of Macintosh computers. Together, these books provide the essential reference for programmers, designers, and engineers creating applications for the Macintosh family of computers.
This month, Inside Macintosh is provided in HTML format for the purposes of testing the Apple HTML Local Search prototype search application. Some hyperlinks may be "broken" and some may connect to other web servers on the internet. To begin browsing, open the file "!InsideMacMainPage.html" with your web browser.
The following books are included in addition to the Inside Macintosh series:
Apple Game Sprockets Guide
Apple Guide Complete
AppleScript Finder Guide
AppleScript Language Guide
Cyberdog Programmer's Kit
The Inside Macintosh - QuickDraw GX series is available online, and will return to the Reference Library Edition next quarter.
MacODBC 2.1.2 GM: MacODBC is the standard way for developers to write MacOS-based applications that communicate to databases using the Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) standard. This folder contains the software development kit for MacODBC version 2.1.2 GM.
Features:
• Cross-platform remote database access
• Wide range of third party drivers
• All major relational databases covered
• Many Mac OS databases also supported (Butler from Everyware Corp. , dTF from theta group and many more )
MacsBug 6.5.3: This is the latest version of MacsBug, Apple's object-level debugger. See the document "MacsBug 6.5.3 Read Me" for details about this release.
MenuScripter 4.0: The purpose of the MenuScripter sample code is to demonstrate advanced features of the Open Scripting Architecture (OSA). Using the OSA allows MenuScripter to have its behavior altered by attaching scripts to objects such as a document. The scripts can be created in the Script Editor, MenuScripter itself, or any other script editing application.
MenuScripter 4.0 implements many of the of the techniques described in Paul Smith's develop articles - 'Programming for Flexibility: The Open Scripting Architecture' and 'Implementing Inheritance In Scripts' (see references). If you intend to use the OSA then I recommend that you read these articles.
Here is a list of the OSA features MenuScripter demonstrates:
• Attaching scripts to objects.
• Installing a predispatch Apple event handler to allow an objects script first go at handling any events targetted at the object.
• Directly compiling and executing scripts.
• Decompiling existing scripts for editing.
• Getting and setting properties in scripts.
• Retrieving information on errors that occur in a script.
• Loading and storing scripts.
MoreFinderEvents: The AppleEvents API is icky and you probably don't relish the idea of developing an intimate relationship with it. And you don't feel your application should yet require the scriptable Finder, which first shipped in System 7.5. Yet you still want to make Finder do backflips and cartwheels. Enter MoreFinderEvents. This package provides you with a painless API for sending some of the more simple forms of the FinderEvents, which have been with us since System 7.0.0. With this API you can copy a file or open a control panel or empty the trash or any of several other things usually done by Finder at the user's request.
OTPingSample: This sample is a quick demonstration of how to implement ping on top of the Open Transport native APIs.
OTTraceRouteSample: This sample is a quick demonstration of how to implement traceroute on top of the Open Transport native APIs. The sample is useful because it gives a good demonstration of the setting the IP TTL option and of using a "rawip" endpoint to receive and process ICMP packets.
Scrap Color 1.0: Scrap Color is a clipboard format and supporting code library to aid in communicate color information between applications by using the clipboard. It was released in June 1996 by Mark Womack and Patrick Bores. Code Library written by Mark Womack. See the file ' Scrap Color Documentation' for details.
Note: This is NOT AN APPLE PRODUCT. It is provided on an AS-IS basis. Apple is not responsible for any problems you may encounter in its use.
ZapTCP 1.2.1: ZapTCP provides a safety net for MacTCP developers. It automatically cleans up TCP streams that are left dangling when your application quits unexpectedly. This prevents a lot of restarting during MacTCP development. Version 1.2.1 renders the extension benign under Open Transport.
