mguyott@eriador.prime.com (03/21/91)
I am looking for a good introductory book for Mac programming. I have
extensive experience programming for MS Windows. We are getting ready to
port our product to the Mac and I am looking for a book that will give
me a good starting point. For those of you who are familiar with MS Windows,
I am looking for a book similar to Petzold`s "Programming Windows". For
those of you who are not familiar with MS Windows, I am looking for a book
that starts with "hello world" and ends up going into many of the more
useful details of the more general functionality of the environment.
Petzold's book is 944 pages and includes many sample (simple) programs
that demonstrate the points he is trying to make. I will post any
information I receive in a week or so. Thanks in advance, Marc
----
Two of the worst things we teach our children are that a knowledge of science
is nice but not necessary, and a knowledge of sex is necessary but not nice.
Marc Guyott Constellation Software, Inc. (508) 620-2800
Framingham, Mass. 01701 USA Ext. 3135
mguyott@primerd.prime.com ...!{uunet, decwrl}!primerd.prime.com!mguyottLawson.English@p88.f15.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Lawson English) (03/22/91)
mguyott@eriador.prime.com writes in a message to All
M> We are getting ready to port our product to the Mac and I am
M> looking for a book that will give me a good starting point
When porting your prog to the Mac, pay very close attention to the Mac User-Interface
Guidelines. Reviewers of Mac software love to rip applications to shreds when
they don't follow the guidelines. For instance: the Windows habit of creating
"hot-keys" in a dialog by using the first letter of the title of a button doesn't
work well on the Mac as certain cmd-key combinations are already taken, such
as cmd-c for Copy or cmd-o for Open. If you used "o" for "OK" or "c" for "Cancel",
you might confuse lots of folks. Use <Return> for the (hilited) default button,
and cmd-<period> for Cancel (assuming that it's not the default...) and you
will find that users will accept your application more readily...
(Almost) every volume of "Inside Macintosh" has a chapter on the Mac Human-Interface
Guidelines and there is a seperate book from Addison-Wesely that addresses this
issue.
Lawson
--
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Internet: Lawson.English@p88.f15.n300.z1.fidonet.orgd88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) (03/25/91)
Lawson.English@p88.f15.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Lawson English) writes:
they don't follow the guidelines. For instance: the Windows habit
of creating "hot-keys" in a dialog by using the first letter of the
title of a button doesn't work well on the Mac as certain cmd-key
combinations are already taken, such as cmd-c for Copy or cmd-o for
Hmmm... Who said anything about CMD ? Alpha (the editor, am I getting
boring about it yet ?) lets you press buttons by pressing the first key
_without_ cmd. This only works in non-edit-text dialogs, tho'
Of course ESC or CMD-. should Cancel (It doesn't in THINK C ! BOOOO !)
but you could also do as I do in Mac NetHack: change the default button
by pressing tab or space (Well, we haven't talked to the HI group at
Apple about this yet - we're on the run from the Thought Police :-)
(Oh, and NetHack dialogs surely accept letters for buttons)
Happy hacking
h+@nada.kth.se
Jon W{tte
--
"The IM-IV file manager chapter documents zillions of calls, all of which
seem to do almost the same thing and none of which seem to do what I want
them to do." -- Juri Munkki in comp.sys.mac.programmerLawson.English@p88.f15.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Lawson English) (03/26/91)
Jon W{tte writes in a message to All
JW> Hmmm... Who said anything about CMD ? Alpha (the editor, am I
JW> getting boring about it yet ?) lets you press buttons by pressing
JW> the first key _without_ cmd. This only works in non-edit-text
JW> dialogs, tho'
So now I must remember that when in a non-edit-text dialog, to do one thing,
and not another? How 'modal' (sorry).
Lawson
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