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What makes the Macintosh Macintosh? The Macintosh interface, with its collection of icons and menus accessible at the click of a button, is unique. There are several imitations, but nothing works quite as well as the Macintosh view of computing. Understanding this interface is deceptively easy, but creating in this interface can be difficult. Rules govern the way in which this interface works, rules that make thousands of applications work in similar fashion. That means that any Macintosh user can go from one application to another and know that certain menus and icons will appear in the proper places in the Macintosh window
Learning the Macintosh so well as to be able to invent software for its environment is a different experience from other kinds of programming. Objects and their mapping require an imagination that sees code not solely as a means to finish certain tasks but as a way to order a universe of digital representations. To think in that way means spending a great deal of time in advance looking at the computer screen, much as an artist studies a blank canvas. It's the preparation that counts, more than the actual code. Are there tools that help you understand this canvas?
DISTRIBUTING PACTS ON CDS
Apple Computer understands the importance of information about its interface, and from the beginning has made details about the interface available to developers. This information originally appeared in thick binders, and soon transformed to bound volumes and supplemental reports. Changes in the interface were discussed in reports that were made available by subscription in several forms.
Compact discs became a vital way for Apple to distribute technicalities to its programming community. Apple's compact disc series, entitled the Apple Developer CD Series, was a convenient way to distribute a great deal of information on a single wafer of plastic and metal. Apple of course could not resist giving each compact disc in the series whimsical titles, so there were CDs named "Lord of the Files" and "Butch ASCII and the Runtime Kid." The success of this series led Apple to release beta versions of software, for example QuickTime and System 7, to developers on compact disc. Proceedings of Apple's annual programming confab, the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference, also appeared...