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Newsbits

By John Kawakami, MacTech Magazine Editorial Assistant

MW Ships CW 6 at WWDC, x86 Part of Gold

CodeWarrior 6 includes support for exception handling in the C++ compilers as and well as support for Object Pascal in the Pascal compilers. Also included are MacApp 3.1.3 and MacApp 3.3a1 for C++ programmers as well as MacApp2PPC for Pascal programmers. The new CodeWarrior also supports compiling for 68K and Power Macintosh without switching development environments.

The Developer Release CD, which is included with the CW 6 distribution, includes development releases of CodeWarrior for Win32, Magic Cap and CFM68K development.

Metrowerks’ new Macintosh-hosted Win32 backend and linker support development of Win32 applications using Macintosh and Power Macintosh computers, and includes all necessary Win32 headers and DLLs to create Win32 apps.

The Magic Cap developer toolkit is on the Developer Release CD to allow customers to evaluate the new technologies. Normally, CodeWarrior Magic is a separate subscription.

The new compilers and linkers for CFM68K support the new runtime architecture from Apple Computer designed for OpenDoc development as well as future operating systems. These tools are provided to support OpenDoc development on 68K Macintoshes as well as Power Macintoshes.

Metrowerks also announced that the final CodeWarrior x86 tools will be included as part of the standard CodeWarrior Gold subscription package at the same price of $399 in September 1995 or $199 in the case of renewals. CodeWarrior Magic/MPW is priced at $299 and includes 3 additional CDs over the next year. CodeWarrior Bronze for 68K Macintosh development is also available for $99. Metrowerks (512) 346-1935, email: sales@metrowerks.com

QC Enhances API for MW

Onyx Technology announced an update to it’s popular QC stress testing tool for the Mac. Version 1.1.3 is now shipping and updaters from the previous 1.1.2 version are available on most online services. The update includes improved error detection, new activate/deactivate sounds, an improvement in PowerBook sleep handling, and improvements in the reported errors. The update also includes eight bug fixes and improvements in localization resources. The Japanese version is being updated at this time and expected to be available within a month.

The main catalyst for this update was improvements to the application programming interface (QCAPI) allowing better support for external services, including the new Metrowerks CodeWarrior debuggers in CW6. When debugging an application that is being tested with QC, the new debuggers will catch QC detected errors and display the error to the user along with the source code of where the error occurred.

QC is a system extension that allows programmers and test engineers to quickly isolate problems in application software and code resources that would otherwise randomly crash or hang under different Macintosh configurations. These tests can be performed by non-technical personnel with little or no knowledge of Macintosh programming. Software engineers can take advantage of a custom API to achieve pinpoint control from directly within their code. QC gives developers and Quality Control personnel an extensive tool for stress testing their application software before it’s shipped.

QC is $99 with discounts for multi pack orders. Onyx Technology, orders: (408) 737-8151, fax: (813) 795-5901, email orders: onyxadmin@aol.com, technical email: onyxtech@aol.com

ASCAP for the Net? Or More Big Brother?

Intellectual Property Licensing Agency (IPLA) is the Internet’s first copyright protection agency. The principle is very simple. An author joins IPLA. The author will then register each work that appears on the Internet. IPLA supplies a program that operates as a front end to the viewing of the work. The program contacts IPLA and logs the request. This is all done within a second or two over the Internet.

As an IPLA registered author the copyright owner gets protection from misappropriation of his/her work. IPLA monitors the Internet for misappropriation of work licensed to IPLA. IPLA will in the future seek blanket license fees from Internet Providers. This will become a source of royalty income for authors. There is no charge to join or to register a work with IPLA.

IPLA will then distribute these license fees to its authors. The distribution is based on a formula which takes into consideration the “intellectual weight” of the work. Each work is assigned a “weight”. Each unique viewing of the work is given this weight. Additional factors, such as repeated viewing by the same viewer, are taken into consideration. Beta-testing of the system will begin June 1. email: president@ipla.com,

WWW: <http://www.ipla.com/jweb/index.html>,

mailing list: ipla-talk-request@ipla.com with “subscribe ipla-talk YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS” in the body of the email.

Run CyberDog, Run!

CyberDog is a suite of OpenDoc based Internet parts Apple plans to release as beta this August. Each tool radically simplifies access to the ’net, allowing end users to create buttons which retrieve ’net resources, be they web pages, newsgroups, gophers, etc. Netscape, Mosaic, and other web browsers attempt to integrate all the popular services into one interface, whereas CyberDog implements a single OpenDoc part for each service. End users will be able to create documents analogous to web pages, except they will be easy to produce, be simple to distribute, and will look and feel nicer than anything you can coax out of Netscape.

Bare Bones to Inherit Baseline Customers

Bare Bones Software, Inc., and Baseline Publishing, Inc. announced their joint agreement to offer BBEdit, Bare Bones Software’s popular text editor, to current owners of Baseline’s text editor, Vantage. Vantage users can upgrade to BBEdit at a discounted single-unit price of $69.95. Current owners of Vantage may contact Baseline Publishing at (901) 527-2501, fax: (901) 523-1232 , email: baseline@eWorld.com

Apple Ships HyperCard 2.3

The latest version of HyperCard boasts 24-bit color tools, text-to-speech capabilities, and comes packaged with AddMotion II (an animation tool), and several Quicktime video editing and effects tools. Version 2.3 also boasts a new feature called “Button Tasks” which effectively allows scripting-phobic users to create buttons to navigate between cards, play multimedia clips, and launch apps, and otherwise author stacks more easily. This may not impress MacTech readers, but is useful for Macintosh savvy end users who need to distrbute multimeda information and small presentations. Priced at $129, users of version 2.2 may upgrade for $39. Apple (800) 282-2732

OpenDialog Makes Creating Dialogs (Even) Easier

FGM Inc. has announced the release of its new product, OpenDialog, a developer tool that dramatically reduces the amount of coding necessary for dialog box management on the Macintosh. OpenDialog automates and streamlines the management of buttons, checkboxes, and filters, and the editing of fields and fonts. Radio buttons can be automatically grouped and tracked, with only one callback to indicate which button is selected. Checkboxes require no interface code; push buttons require no determination code; and pop-up menus use standard calls and are treated as standard dialog items. Also supported are setting the keyboard focus and creating context sensitive help. FGM Inc., (703) 478-9881, email: tammyh@fgm.com

Tools Plus GUI Libs Now PowerPC-Native

Water’s Edge has released Tools Plus 2.6, an update to their multi-language, multi-compiler user interface and event managing libraries. Tools Plus interface elements automatically adopt standard Macintosh behavior as they interact with one another. For example, the Edit menu’s Undo/Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste and Clear items are fully functional as soon as the menu is created. As the user works in an editing field, the Undo item’s text automatically changes (Undo Typing, Redo Cut, etc.), and all the Edit menu’s items are properly enabled or disabled according to the user’s activity. In addition to supporting standard GUI elements, Tools Plus makes complex features easy to implement, such as multi-state or animated picture buttons, floating palettes and tool bars.

Tools Plus employs an “event translator” which automatically handles events directed at Tools Plus elements, and hides interface complexities from the application. Occurrences that require a response from the application generate a “Tools Plus Event” which requires no decoding and is immediately usable.

Tools Plus for Symantec Corporation’s (THINK) C/C++ or THINK Pascal is $149 each, or $199 for both. Tools Plus for Metrowerks CodeWarrior Bronze, which includes C/C++ and Pascal libraries for 680x0 processors, is only $199. Tools Plus for CodeWarrior Gold, which includes C/C++ and Pascal libraries for both 680x0 and PowerPC processors, is $299. Water’s Edge Software (416) 219-5628, fax (905) 847-1638, email: WatersEdge@eWorld.com

QuickDraw 3D Coming this Summer, in 3D

Apple will release the first version of QuickDraw 3D in the summer of 1995. QuickDraw 3D will be available to customers in new computers, in stand-alone Mac OS packages, and bundled with applications through developer licensing. For developers, Apple will offer a complete SDK with full documentation of the API. The Windows version will be released after the initial release.

QuickDraw 3D will feature a 3D metafile format which describes not only the object’s geometry, but rendering and scene information as well. In other words, a PICT for 3D objects. The underlying architecture is extremely extensible, allowing you to add new shaders, file formats, interface architectures, and geometry engines. And there will be OpenDoc support, of course.

URL: http://www.austin.apple.com/qd3d