This month's Worldwide System Software folder contains U.S. and Worldwide versions of System Software 7.5.2 for the Power Macintosh 7200, 7500, 8500, and 9500 computers. Some points to remember to make your installer experience a happy one:
• To create floppy disks from the disk images, use the "Disk Copy 4.2" or "ShrinkWrap™ 1.4.2" applications in the Utilities folder. To create net install folders on your desktop, use the "DropDisk 1.0b5" or "ShrinkWrap™ 1.4.2" applications.
• The installer program for these versions of system software needs to be able to determine at run time the type of the machine it is installing the software for; therefore, you must run the installer on the appropriate machine, even if you are installing to a drive that is not the current boot drive.
• U.S. system software can be found in the Worldwide System Software folder under "English, U.S.".
• The "•common disks" folder contains disk images common to the PowerPC 7200/9500 and PowerPC 7500/8500 folders. Do not install from this folder (you can't anyway, as it contains no "Install 1" disks); install from the images in the PowerPC 7200/9500 or PowerPC 7500/8500 folders.
Some of the more observant (and vocal ;-) of you will notice that this disc is still not bootable; we're working with our vendors to make sure future discs will consistently boot on most Macs and CD-ROM drives. We hope to have this in place for the January '96 CD.
More new and revised stuff this month:
Developer Notes Update 10/95: Included here are developer notes for several new products: The AppleVision 1710AV Display, the Apple AV Architecture, the Macintosh PowerBook 190 and 5300 computers, the Macintosh PowerBook Duo 2300c computer, the Macintosh PowerBook Processor Card Upgrade Kit with PowerPC 603e for the PowerBook 500 series computers, and the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) expansion card interface.
GXifier 1.1: The GXifier automatically adds tables to existing TrueType fonts that allow those fonts to be used more effectively with applications that support GX typography. The 1.1 version adds support for more scripts, and adds more information automatically to fonts.
This package requires QuickDraw GX. The "About the GXifier" document can be opened in SimpleText if GX is installed. This package only works with TrueType fonts in the Roman, Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese script systems. Other scripts will be supported in future versions.
PowerTalk Access Modules: This package contains sample code and some tools for creating PowerTalk and PowerShare Service Access Modules (SAMs). These samples are essentially half gateways for the PowerTalk and PowerShare APIs. The developer supplies the other half which is written for the service API of choice. This sample code is not completely functional, but provides a good starting place for development of a service access module.
There is sample code for the three types of Service Access Modules:
• CSAMs (Catalog SAMs)
• PMSAMs (Personal Messaging SAMs)
• SMSAMs (Server Messaging SAMs)
Disclaimers and Shortcomings
• This is SDK quality code. You bear the responsibility for complete testing derived products
• Not all the functionality is included
• Optimizations tradeoffs between memory and performance have not been implemented
• Not ready to produce a PowerPC Native version (however it does use latest universal headers)
• The tools may be strange and awkward to use
• The framework code has not been polished and refined to make it more suitable for pedagogical purposes
PT/PS Products Guide: The PowerTalk/PowerShare Products Guide starts with a description of the technology and how it provides solutions for communication and collaboration. Following that is a complete catalog of PowerTalk and PowerShare applications.
QuickTime 2.1: The QuickTime system software extension enables you to integrate video, graphics, sound, sprites, text, music, and animation into documents. By providing a standard way for all Macintosh programs to control these multimedia elements, QuickTime makes them easier to use. QuickTime 2.1 includes support for smoother video, sprite animation, CD-ROM AutoStart, 16-bit audio compression, and MPEG. It also includes the capabilities of the Apple Multimedia Tuner.
More information on QuickTime can be found on Apple Computer’s QuickTime site on the World Wide Web. The address is: http://quicktime.apple.com.
This package also contains version 3.1 of the Sound Manager. The Sound Manager 3.1 software consists of
• the Sound Manager system software extension
• a new version of the Sound Control Panel
Available since the introduction of the Macintosh II in 1987, the Sound Manager is Apple's digital audio software solution that allows any application to play and record sounds using the built-in sound hardware found on Macintosh computers. Sound Manager 3.0, released in 1993, added support for 16-bit CD-quality audio, redirection of sound to third-party hardware cards, and plug-in audio compression/decompression software (codecs).
Sound Manager 3.1 adds two new audio codecs, significant performance increases on the Power Macintosh line of computers, and asynchronous alert sounds. It is completely backwards compatible with previous versions of the Sound Manager.
Snippets Update: This folder contains four new snippets from Virginia (Ginny) McCulloh, Apple Developer Technical Support.
GetOwnerGroup: This sample demonstrates how to determine the Owner and Group of a directory (folder). It is really a modification of Brian Bechtel's and CK Haun's sample "Select Folder w/ Gray files"; instead of reporting the vRefNum and the parID in a dialog, I report the Owner Name and Group Name of the directory. This sample requires Think C version 7.0.x or MPW 3.3.x.
IconUtilCheck: This snippet shows how to determine whether the Icon Utilities are available. According to the Tech Note OV - 16, "Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox, page 5-7, specifies that the gestaltIconUtilitiesAttr - 'icon' gestalt selector can be used to determine whether the icon utilities are present under System 7.x. Note that this selector is included in the GestaltEqu files. It turns out that this selector is not implemented until System Software v7.1.2. To check for the existence of these utilities, use the TrapAvailable code to check for the _IconDispatch, (0xABC9) trap. The TrapAvailable code is presented in Inside Macintosh VI 3-8, and as sample code in many of the snippets on the Developer CD. This sample runs under Think C 7.0.4, CodeWarrior 6, and MPW 3.3.1 with the Universal Headers.
PowerMacOr68K: This snippet shows how to determine whether you are running on a Power Macintosh or on a 680x0 Macintosh. It also provides the method for determine exactly which type of processor is running. This works around an off-by-one error with gestaltNativeCPUType. This sample runs under Think C 7.0.4, CodeWarrior 6, and MPW 3.3.1 with the Universal Headers.
ShadingWinds: This little application includes code to allow you to detect whether or a window has been rolled up by WindowShade. How do you do this? You check the window's contRgn. If the contRgn is empty, then the window is shaded. You'll note that the grafPort is unchanged by WindowShade, so if you need to save window dimensions, you can grab that information from the portRect. This runs under Think C 7.0.4 and MPW 3.3.1 with the Universal Headers.
Coming Next Month: I'll try to ship the much-requested new version of SWAt, as well as the usual new and revised tools, utilities, and sample code.
