Technotes

What's New

by John Montbriand

This Technote discusses changes to and corrections in the next generation of the Macintosh Operating System, Mac OS 7.6. This new release of system system builds on and enhances the functionality found in the previous release of Mac OS 7.5.5, which was documented in Technote 1069: System 7.5.5.

By Mark Cookson

This Technote is intended as a brief overview of Extensions Manager 4.0, which is included in Mac 0S 7.6. There are a number of new and enhanced features in the Extensions Manager which will be of interest to anyone who develops control panels, extensions or applications which might be controlled by it.

New Technotes - 1085 to 1089

TECHNOTE 1085: Using the Drag Manager to Interact with and Manipulate File System Entities

By Pete Gontier

The Drag Manager defines two data flavors for interacting with and manipulating file system entities. While The Drag Manager Programmer's Guide explains these flavors, it does not provide sufficient detail for a complete understanding of how to use them.

Developers who are interested in "teaching" (or even those who have already taught) their applications to interact with and manipulate file system entities via the Drag Manager should read this Technote.

TECHNOTE 1086: Power Management & The Energy Saver API

By Vinnie Moscaritolo

In an effort to provide a consistent method of controlling the various power conservation hardware and software features implemented on the Macintosh platform, Apple has introduced the Energy Saver system.

This Note discusses how to communicate with the Macintosh Energy Saver Extension through the Energy Services API and is important for developers who wish to access Mac OS power management features from their applications.

TECHNOTE 1087: Maximizing Your Media: A Brief Guide To the Latest and Greatest QuickTime Media Types

By Drew Colace

Today, QuickTime delivers the most dynamic media available -- professional quality video and sound, MPEG, 3D objects, sprites, text and MIDI, and its capabilities are continuing to grow. With QuickTime 2.5, it is easier now for movie tracks to act on one another, as is the case with our Tween track, which sends its information to another track to change it dynamically over time. The possibilities for truly exposive media content are there.

This Technote explains how you can make sure your QuickTime application isn't blind to any media types available to it and some simple things you can do with that media to add value to your application.

TECHNOTE 1088: Strategies for Producing Browser-Based Technical Documentation

By Tom Maremaa

For better or worse, Web browsers have become one of the preferred ways of viewing technical documentation. Yet browsers and technical documents make strange bedfellows indeed. Viewing documents in a browser (especially if those documents contain complex technical data, extensive illustrations, block diagrams, tables and cross-references) may be less than satisfactory -- the equivalent of reading programmer manuals in a fishbowl.

This Note attempts to provide a few good strategies for resolving some of the issues around producing and viewing Web-based technical documentation.

TECHNOTE 1089: HFS Elucidations Revisited

Revised by Laura Rawson

Originally written by Bo3b Johnson

This Technote, originally FL 6 - HFS Elucidations, describes a few problems that may occur while using Hierarchical File System (HFS). It also describes ways to avoid these problems.

This Note is important for developers who need to address debugging issues involving HFS. This is as important now as it was when the Note was originally published.

New and Revised Technotes

In addition to Technotes 1085 to 1089, all previous New and Revised Technotes are also available. A quick, easy-to-scan Table of Contents includes all of these Technotes in an itemized list sorted by date published on the Web. A more robust Table of Contents, which includes a descriptive passage on each Technote, is also available.

Technotes by Alphabetical Category

Alphabetical categories for Apple Technotes are listed here. You may be able to find the answer you are looking for in several of the following categories.

Additional Information

If you want to order copies of new and revised Technotes, download the Notes or the Technote indexes, or contact the Technote Editor about contributing a Note, please see the Additional Technote Information Page.