What's going to happen to PowerPlant?
Gabriele de Simone
I don't know if any of you share the same feeling, but PP is starting to
feel quite outdated. It's happened more than once that upgrading to a newer
version of PowerPlant was not exactly as easy as recompilation. Why not use
the fact that PP developers have gotten used to know the bowels of their
framework to be more aggressive with respect to Carbonization?
I was very understanding with CW 7, but CW8 has been largely disappointing
in that respect. What about a nice revamp of core files? Any (un)official
information about this? It would be nice to have a clear path for PP's
future, to better make current decisions for development.
Gabriele
Gregory Dow
"Gabriele de Simone" <gab...@borisfx.com> wrote:
> It would be nice to have a clear path for PP's
> future, to better make current decisions for development.
I want to clearly state that the following comments reflect my personal
perspective as the chief architect of PowerPlant. I am not in management
(or marketing), so what I write should not be construed as an "official"
announcement or promises of any future product.
As announced by Apple, the next major release of Mac OS X (Jaguar) will
be released on August 24. Jaguar will have many new features, both for
users and programmers. I can't discuss the details of the
programming-level features, but they will have a big impact on the way
that programs are designed.
The next version of PowerPlant will fully embrace the Carbon API and the
new features in Jaguar. It will be a major rewrite and will not be
backwards compatible. The existing PP library is in bug-fix mode.
Main features of the new PowerPlant:
- View system based on Core Graphics (Quartz), not QuickDraw
- Carbon Events everywhere. No more event loop. Messaging between
objects will use custom Carbon Events.
- STL used for collections
- XML used as the persistent storage format
- CFString used for storing text
- Jaguar required. Carbon only. Mach-O only.
- Scheduled for CW Pro 9
I will be able to post more details after Apple releases Jaguar.
-- Greg
Gabriele de Simone
Thanks!
Stephen Chu
<bmug1-3E6DE3....@newssvr14-ext.news.prodigy.com>,
Gregory Dow <bm...@aol.com> wrote:
> Main features of the new PowerPlant:
>
> - View system based on Core Graphics (Quartz), not QuickDraw
>
> - Carbon Events everywhere. No more event loop. Messaging between
> objects will use custom Carbon Events.
>
> - STL used for collections
>
> - XML used as the persistent storage format
>
> - CFString used for storing text
>
> - Jaguar required. Carbon only. Mach-O only.
>
> - Scheduled for CW Pro 9
It all sounds good (other than Mach-O only, well...) but is there any
plan on making localization easier? Like options the have controls look
for localized string when contructed from stream?
Sean McBride
Stephen Chu <ste...@ju-ju.com> wrote:
> It all sounds good (other than Mach-O only, well...) but is there any
> plan on making localization easier? Like options the have controls look
> for localized string when contructed from stream?
Maybe the new PP will be NIB-based...
Gregory Dow
> It all sounds good (other than Mach-O only, well...)
Mach-O only is a requirement for Jaguar. Apple has said that they will
not be developing CFM wrappers for any new technology.
> but is there any
> plan on making localization easier? Like options the have controls look
> for localized string when contructed from stream?
Controls (and other objects) will be contructed from XML descriptions.
I envision the most common way to localize would be to have separate XML
files for each language. You could put all the separate files into a
package so the user sees just one item in the Finder. At runtime, your
program reads the appropriate XML file.
For simple string substitution to work, there would need to be some osrt
of automatic layout engine that would adjust the size and location of
controls based on string length.
-- Greg
Stephen Chu
<bmug1-5AEEA1....@newssvr13-ext.news.prodigy.com>,
Gregory Dow <bm...@aol.com> wrote:
> Controls (and other objects) will be contructed from XML descriptions.
So the Constructor will create/edit XML based files?
> I envision the most common way to localize would be to have separate XML
> files for each language. You could put all the separate files into a
> package so the user sees just one item in the Finder. At runtime, your
> program reads the appropriate XML file.
That will require Constructor to be fully multi-lingual/Unicode aware.
> For simple string substitution to work, there would need to be some osrt
> of automatic layout engine that would adjust the size and location of
> controls based on string length.
I think auto-resizing will take care of maybe 80% of the work. If we
design out UI carefully, that is.
How is localization going to be handled in general? Are we going to be
able to create different localization projects right in the IDE like PB?
Larry Gerndt
(in message <bmug1-3E6DE3....@newssvr14-ext.news.prodigy.com>):
> The next version of PowerPlant will fully embrace the Carbon API and the
> new features in Jaguar. It will be a major rewrite and will not be
> backwards compatible. The existing PP library is in bug-fix mode.
>
> Main features of the new PowerPlant:
>
> - View system based on Core Graphics (Quartz), not QuickDraw
>
> - Carbon Events everywhere. No more event loop. Messaging between
> objects will use custom Carbon Events.
>
> - STL used for collections
>
> - XML used as the persistent storage format
>
> - CFString used for storing text
>
> - Jaguar required. Carbon only. Mach-O only.
>
> - Scheduled for CW Pro 9
absolutely awesome, Greg! Looking forward to it.
Larry Gerndt
Pixion
mailto:la...@pixion.com
http://www.pixion.com
925-467-5350