Learning Carbon

Learning Carbon is designed to get you programming right away in Carbon™, one of two APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces) Macintosh® programmers can use to write applications that run native in Mac® OS X. Using Carbon, you don't have to rewrite your Mac OS programs entirely to get them to take advantage of the new features in Mac OS X. Instead, all you have to rewrite is the 10 to 20 percent of the code that can't be translated to OS X. For C programmers, Apple's Carbon is the essential building block for applications on Mac OS X. With Carbon, you can use simple, traditional C interfaces to create world-class applications for a world-class operating system.

After orienting you with a detailed tour of a Carbon application, Learning Carbon walks you through the entire process of designing and creating a complete Carbon application called Moon Travel Planner. Along the way, you'll be introduced to two pivotal development tools: Project Builder and Interface Builder. You'll learn key concepts about Carbon and Mac OS X programming, including event management, resource handling, and bundle anatomy. And you'll get direct, hands-on instruction on how to implement essential application tasks, such as managing windows, printing documents, opening and saving files, creating and responding to menu commands, providing user help, and organizing your application for easy localization in multiple countries and languages. After finishing this book, you'll be ready to start writing your own Carbon applications.

Written by Apple insiders with access to engineers deeply involved in creating Mac OS X, Learning Carbon brings you information that's not available anywhere else, to get you in on the ground floor of the exciting new Mac OS X application development market.