May 2002
Intermediate to advanced
646 pages
18h 57m
English
Content preview from Building Cocoa Applications: A Step by Step GuideBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 1. Understanding theAqua Interface
The Mac OS X graphical user interface (GUI) is called Aqua. Aqua’s advanced use of color, animation, and transparency and its plethora of powerful user-oriented features make it a true delight to use for both novices and power users. To write applications that function well in this environment, a developer should first become proficient at using Aqua as a power user. This means knowing Aqua’s GUI guidelines and how applications are structured well enough to accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently. You can then use this knowledge to write applications that provide better interfaces for others.
This chapter contains an introduction to the Aqua GUI and its guidelines. The references at the end of this chapter contain the web addresses for Apple’s guidelines. No previous experience with Mac OS X is assumed. All screen shots were taken from Mac OS X Version 10.1.
What Makes Mac OS X So Special?
Mac OS X is special for two important reasons. First, it brings the popular Macintosh operating system interface into the 21st century with a new, object-oriented environment that is almost as easy to program as it is to use. Second, Mac OS X brings the world’s easiest-to-use interface (Aqua) to the venerable Unix operating system, which is the underlying basis of Mac OS X. This has allowed Apple almost overnight to claim the largest installation of Unix operating systems on the planet: tens of millions! There are now more installed copies of Mac ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.