Learning Carbon

Written for any developer with just a little C/C++ knowledge, Apple Computer's Learning Carbon provides an excellent introduction to the world of Mac development using the Carbon C API--which underlies the new Mac OS X--for creating state-of-the-art applications on this exciting new platform.

The focus of this book is to introduce the key tools and APIs you'll need to start writing Mac programs in C. The authors use a (rather fanciful) "Moon Travel Planner" application as the focus of this text. Beginning with hand-drawn mockups of the various screens in this simple program, they walk the reader through the steps required to bring the design to life. While providing enough background material for various APIs, there are plenty of step-by-step, hands-on exercises here for getting you started with development on today's Mac OS X platform.

Early sections look at the organization of Mac applications using the Project Builder tool. From here, it's on to designing the look and feel of the application using the Interface Builder tool. You'll learn basic resource design, from setting window properties to adding basic controls and creating menus. While this is extremely friendly material, other sections look at the nitty-gritty of programming with Carbon events, which is more difficult. (The authors will help get you started successfully with event handling. An appendix contains a listing of Carbon events and constants.)

Subsequent enhancements to the travel planner application include printing support (also an in-depth topic with sample code for basic printing support), file I/O (for saving and loading files), plus adding help files and even localization support (for bringing programs to international markets). Later sections cover the basics of integrating your new application into the desktop, including adding icons and properties.

While Carbon programming is undoubtedly a huge topic, this lively introduction can help new C/C++ programmers get started with development on the new Mac OS X, with or without previous Macintosh experience. Always clearly presented, this book is a great place to start with programming for today's Mac. --Richard Dragan

Topics Covered:

• Overview of the Carbon C API and the Mac OS X
• Hands-on tutorial for a sample travel itinerary application
• UI design guidelines
• Using the Project Builder for basic application design
• Using the Interface Builder to design windows (basic and advanced Carbon controls and tools)
• The Carbon event model and event handling (including calling and processing events)
• Designing menus and menu bars (visual design and menu event handling)
• Localization in Carbon (using multiple languages with language-specific folders and localized text)
• Printing conventions and APIs in Carbon (basics of printing, plus sample print code)
• Property lists
• Basic file I/O (including Mac file systems)
• Building HTML help
• Designing and working with Mac OS X icons
• Scriptable applications
• Threads and multiprocessing
• Tab controls
• Reference to Carbon events and parameters for common events