Mac OS X Apps on Zaurus

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller reports progress in the mySTEP project to run Mac OS X applications on the Sharp Zaurus. Though not yet ready for production, the newest release brings more maturity and features, and Dr. Schaller invites anyone interested in integrating mobile, low-cost, handheld computers with Mac OS X-based IT applications to contact the project. In particular, Dr. Schaller would like to locate someone interested in developing and contributing a new menu system (NSMenuView, NSMenuItemCell) to the project."

Comments

Re:Afraid not...

[FredFnord]

1) Preference panes are Apple technologes

In what way? The System Preferences panel is not really in any way different than any one of a dozen implementations of preferences for a dozen other programs. There's nothing new there. Admittedly, if it looks identical to the Apple implementation, *IDENTICAL*, then it's a bit of a rip. But nothing too exciting.

2) Menu extras are Apple technologies.

Okay. What's a Menu Extra?

3) The Finder is an Apple technology.

This specifically doesn't run the finder, it runs something vaguely similar that he's putting together himself.

Unless what you really mean is 'anything called 'The Finder' is an Apple technology.' Or 'anything that looks kind of like the Apple Finder is a rip-off,' in which case basically every OS's GUI that is even vaguely usable today is a rip-off. I explicitly include some of the better Linux GUI work.

4) Cocoa (not OpenStep, but Cocoa) is an Apple technology.

Look, here's how you create a new window in Cocoa:

NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];

(c.f. documentation here:)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/C ocoa/Ref erence/ApplicationKit/ObjC_classic/Classes/NSWindo w.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000013/BCIBIAJJ

And here's how you create one in OpenStep:

NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];

(c.f. documentation here:)
http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/802-2112/6i63mn 62p?q=ns window&a=view

Now, may I remind you that this is a WINDOW. In MacOS X, it's got colorful lickable widgets, it's displayed in Display PDF, it's got Quartz Extreme accelerating it (and is therefore drawn totally differently in some cases than in others.) In contrast, in Solaris OpenStep, it's displayed in X, and in Display Postscript in NeXTStep, its widgets look completely different, it has three different kinds of graphics implementations, it does different things when you click and drag in it, and just in general it behaves very differently than it does on the Mac. So this isn't some kind of 'really similar' special case. This is representative of the whole language.

Now, given that, I'm leaving you to guess how different Cocoa and NeXTStep/OpenStep actually are.

-fred