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Hacking Quartz
Exposed writes "Meaty interview with Rich Wareham who is known to Linux users for his libdvdnav library which is used by Xine and other linux players. On OS X he created Desktop Manager, the GPL solution for VirtualDesktops on the Mac. Highlights are secret APIs in OS X for VirtualDesktops, who steals GPL source and why beginner programmers are at a disadvantage now."
It was a short section in the middle - to summarize:
"The level of effort is much harder now for a kid to get into programming - PC's used to ship with Basic manuals and you could write code to draw a spaceship in ten lines of code, but now you have to learn the Win32 API + Directx to get a black triangle on the screen."
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I really have to say that Desktop Manager is amazing. It even has eye candy transforms between desktops (such as the sides of a cube representation of things). And to boot, Rich emailed me back some time ago when I had a question.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Apple does indeed have a number of undocumented API calls in Mac OS X. Now whilst it would be nice for all of the API calls to be documented they simply aren't right now.
Quartz actually can do a whole load of other things using undocumented APIs besides this virtual desktop stuff. It's also possible to rotate windows, shrink them, and zoom them up - I have an application that does this. However those that have investigated the APIs that allow these wild things to happen have found that they're not exactly complete.
Apple has of course been challenged about these APIs, and they remain consistent: you shouldn't use these APIs. They are undocumented because they are likely to change in the future. When the API is complete they will be documented, but not before then.
It's quite possible that all of these APIs (handling virtual desktops, rotation, and scaling) will be documented for 10.4 (Tiger).
One example of this is the shadow effect that Mac OS X supports on windows and other graphics. It's been there since 10.0, but it wasn't publically documented (although some people discovered its API). Apple only used this API for shadowing windows and menus. An official API for shadows was introduced in 10.3 which is more fully featured and easier to use than the old unofficial API. Indeed there's two official APIs now for shadows - one for low level Quartz calls, and a high-level API for AppKit.
Of course what Apple really should do is make sure that these new experimental APIs simply aren't present in the shipping OS. Apple themselves don't use them, so why leave them around?
Of course this is a matter of taste, but i dont agree with you. Expose for me is pretty useless. OK, we can highlight a few applications, but that's not my problem.
My PROBLEM is that i dont want to mess around finding my apps. Expose is simply too slow to use, i cannot find everything with a single click.
On my Gnome workstation i have 11 virtual desktops, one for each server i'm maintaining, plus some for mail, comms and web. I know that by pressing CTRL + i instantly move to a desktop with all my windows positioned they way I want them. Desktop Manager does the same for me on OS X
My problem with Expose is that I'm not trying to find ONE application, but a whole bunch. I dont want to find "Word" or "Netscape". I want to find everything "Mailserver-related", "Primary Nameserver-related" etc. Simply put, i want to find more than one window/application, expose cant do that, Desktop Manager does.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
Yeah, you're missing something, but I don't blame you, the write-up is confusing.
First, the poster mentions: on OS X he created Desktop Manager, the GPL solution for VirtualDesktops
So, you see, the poster is using "VirtualDesktops" as a name for "virtual desktop technology," not as "VirtualDesktop Lite/Pro, the product from the company CodeTek."
Second, the list at the end is suppose to be read this way:
Highlights are:
- secret APIs in OS X for [virtual desktop technology]
- who [is it that] steals GPL source [?]
- why beginner programmers are at a disadvantage now
Thus, it's just a list of interesting items from the interview; it isn't supposed to be read "blah blah blah CodeTek, who steals".
Finally, the answer to the second "highlight" -- is indeed in the article posed as:
You mentioned all of your code being released as GPL, and much of it isn't throw-away stuff. Do you ever worry or wonder about it being 'lifted' and incorporated into proprietary software?
So, yep, it's in there: "lifted" instead of "steals." Interesting answer from Rich, too.
I'll answer this to the best of my current capability, my iBook being in Ireland and all due to display problems.
I usually use GNU/Linux on my iBook, which is one of the later G3 models, or a G3 800MHz 12.1". The OS i was using at the time was Mac OS X 10.3 booted from a 1GB partition i use when i want to muck around with OSX, as for the version, i dont remember nor am in a position to check, this was about 3 months ago though, and was the latest version at that time.
Now, dont get me wrong, in it's core concept this is an okey app, however the implementation is somewhat bad.
1. When you use the windowlist-in-macbar ( the file-edit.. thing at the top of the screen ( danm my mac-jargon knowlage is outdated )) it frequently underflows under other menus when you have a small screen, such as in my iBook. Of course this it not in all applications but it happens when you open certain apps that spawn lots of these menus not to mention having the iChat menu and others up there.
2. It crashed, and often, when this happened all windows were gathered in one desktop on top of each other, nothing you couldnt solve with Exposé but still a frequent annoyance which eventually led to me uninstalling it.
3. To top it all off you got a "You are about to shut Desktop Manager off, this will gather your windows inn one desktop yadayadayada yes/no" message when the computer shut down, this in itself was not such an annoyance, just something that added to problem nr. 2.
Don't get me wrong, i just said it was unstable at the time, it is however a great concept. I use this feature on my GNU/Linux desktop every day so it's not like i'm unused to the concept, however at the time i tested it it was at least on my machine way too unstable to be of any good use, so i just went back to Exposé. However i wish the author the best of luck in future development and hope that by the next time i test it will actually work as desired, plust it had some neat ( if useless ) transition effects.
Cheers.
Expose is somewhat slower if you don't have a Quartz Extreme Card. Classic apps tend to slow it down even further. On my faster mac, Quartz Extreme eliminates the annoying milliseconds of latency.
.info file, and one for monitoring compilations...)
It's rather useful, I think, when switching between mail, a web browser, and a few finder windows. It's less useful when one is trying to use multiple xterms, for say, writing a fink package. (one for constructing patches, one for writing the