Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!prism!vsserv!loligo!pepke From: pepke@loligo (Eric Pepke) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Getting started with Mac programming Message-ID: <215@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu> Date: 25 Sep 89 22:30:36 GMT References: <7893@leadsv.UUCP> <11542@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> Sender: news@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu Reply-To: pepke@loligo.UUCP (Eric Pepke) Distribution: na Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Lines: 41 In article <11542@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: >You *must* have Inside Mac. There is no substitute. > >In my experience, the first volume contains 90% of what I need to >know. Most of the rest is in volume II, and I've hardly used III. >Volumes IV and V are more relevant to the SE and the MacII, but I have >only a lowly Mac+, so I haven't purchased them. There is a lot of information in IV and V for Mac+'s, as well. You should have at least IV. IMHO the most important things in IV are the List Manager and the calls that let you open up a resource file read-only. IV also has the Hierarchical File System, but it is possible to write fully functional applications without it. For some strange reason, the pop-up and hierarchical menu information is in V, but you can get that from other sources, such as examples in the archives. The Inside Macintosh X-ref has a good list of global variables which you will need before too long. I would suggest that a programmer new to the Macintosh sit down and read at least these chapters before you start to write a program: Inside Macintosh I- 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 20 Inside Macintosh II- 1 A lot of the packages interact in fundamental ways, and you have to get a feel for how an application hangs together before you can design one. Next, sit down and write a skeleton. Nothing fancy, just something that can open up windows, pretend to open files of a certain type, support desk accessories, ask the user whether to save changes, put up an About... dialog, etc. Once you have done a skeleton, you will have a much better feel for the flow of control in a Macintosh application. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.