Editor's Notes

Mary Elaine Califf

This issue

We have an interesting issue for you this month, especially for those with source code disk subscriptions. The four technical articles focus on MacApp 3. Those who have struggled with QuickTime and MacApp 3 and those who have been scared off will appreciate Jesse Feiler and Joe Roberts' article on using QuickTime with MacApp 3. Their example program demonstrates several different techniques and uses a custom controller since the standard controller is not always sufficient. Those who have Ad Lib or are thinking about a future purchase will want to read Nick Nallick's article on prototyping with "handlers" using Ad Lib. Mike Rossetti treats us to a description of his self-expanding views. These are views like those in the System 7 Finder lists and ViewEdit 3.0 with one improvement. The contents of the view can grow or shrink, and the enclosing view's frame will change correspondingly. Finally, Gordon Apple shows us how to extract the functionality of DemoText into a behavior.

Kent Sandvik's column introduces us to Apple's new Shared Libraries Manager which first appeared on ETO #8. He describes the manager and his development of the sample program that appears on the FrameWorks source code disk.

Other items of special interest are a letter from our president and a compilation of the discussion about Bedrock on MACAPP3TECH$ since the last issue went to press.

Windows, etc.

In this issue we have several good articles on MacApp, but we have room for more. With the expansion of MADA's charter, FrameWorks has also expanded its focus, and we have had several articles on other object-oriented technologies on the Macintosh as well as James Plamondon's Windowsland columns. However, I would like to see some technical articles intended for people doing object-oriented development for Windows. Although Bedrock is coming, some of our developers are either already doing cross-platform development or will need to move to it before Bedrock is available. So those of you doing cross-platform development now, please consider writing reviews of the various frameworks and development tools available and writing technical articles like those we have published on MacApp, Prograph, and MCL.

In future issues

Watch your mailbox. Articles coming up in future issues include reviews of Ad Lib, Component Workshop, and ObjectMaster, and technical articles on exception-handling in MacApp, Prograph, object-oriented analysis and design. We will also keep you up-to-date with Bedrock as we receive information. Our regular columns will continue with the addition of a point-counterpoint style column co-authored by Eric Berdahl and Jeff Alger. Those who have monitored their "discussions" on MACAPP3TECH$ will look forward to this new feature as I do.

Authors and Contributing Editors

FrameWorks is always looking for new authors (and for more articles from old authors). Our now wider field of interest increases the available topics, but we still want to hear about your MacApp-based classes, too. Remember also that regular contributors can become contributing editors who 1) write articles regularly, 2) provide feedback on each issue (usually via an email message), 3) recruit other authors, and 4) get listed in each issue. Write me for more information. n