Odds-And-Ends for Dec 2
One post with about two dozen links and superflous explanations. Cocoa's up first.Cocoa
Does everyone know about the ImageIO overview at ADC? It's CF-style, but it's still better than raw C.
A site/person/entity called Kaintek released some code which draws Tiger-style reflections.
Tyler Ballance just released a project called XmlToolbar which, strangely enough, allows you to define Cocoa toolbars using XML files which are read at runtime. Bleep Software also has a short writeup on Core Data migrations.
Noodlesoft explains how to punch holes in Quartz paths by exploring the intricacies of winding rules.
Ankur Kothari recently released a PDF book on using the undocumented parts of CoreGraphics to do all sorts of superfluous transition animations. Cube rotations all around.
Deutsy Designs is a brand new Cocoa blog which already has a bunch of interesting posts.
Peter Hosey explains how to use Mach clocks for fine-grained time measurement.
Daring Fireball points to the new eBoy FooBar poster, which features TextMate(!). I like the Space Invaders floor tiling.
Mac
Also thanks to Daring Fireball, I found BetterZip. How did I not know about this before? Not only can you make archives without Mac metadata, but you can create encrypted zip files, and look inside archives without actually uncompressing them. It's not the only tool ever made to do this, but it's certainly one of the most polished.
I mentioned it here before, but Cha-Ching looks pretty fantastic. But it's not just pretty, it's smart. For example, you can use your built-in iSight to take photos of the things you buy. Here's a writeup. Another contender is Jumpsoft's Money 2.
Jesper has a Hex plug-in for the standard Apple color picker. Ideal for web design.
Other
Flow is not news, but it is a brilliant piece of work. Somewhere between FlyGuy and Electroplankton.
Dave Titus describes how Netscape's Mozilla character was born (found at Drawn! — one of my absolute favorites).
The descriptively-titled Google Apps for Your Domain looks really interesting. Basically, it's private-label mail, calendar, talk and web page tools with a custom start page. You just show up with the domain and Google handles all of your organization's basic communication needs. Currently in selective beta.
At some point, I stumbled on Sonoluminescence. Briefly, it is "the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound." That's pretty wonderfully weird.
Wonderlost: The Alice Project has some of the most stunningly gorgeous design elements I've ever seen — both the site and the paintings. All of the paintings are done in using Photoshop only. The images themselves are a bit on the creepy side, just so you know.
Just Because
When I was in grade school, I really knew it was Christmas time when the Christmas-themed Fruit Pebbles and Honey Nut Cherrios commercials showed up.
I'm pretty sure I always wondered why if Fred could be nice to Barney at Christmas, why he couldn't be nice to him all the time. For that matter, why couldn't Scrooge (though I guess he does ultimately)? But I'm weird like that.
Odds-And-Ends for Dec 2
Posted Dec 2, 2006 — 7 comments below
Posted Dec 2, 2006 — 7 comments below
Carl — Dec 02, 06 2526
The Flintstones Is A Grim Portrait Of A Post-Apocalyptic World Where Genetic Science Has Revived The Dinosaurs And Destroyed All Society!!
Uli Kusterer — Dec 03, 06 2536
Jesper — Dec 03, 06 2537
Mithras — Dec 03, 06 2540
Ankur — Dec 07, 06 2613
Philip Orr — Feb 18, 07 3593
I am trying you create a suit of small apps and was wondering if its possible to get a list of all mdimporters on the system and what extensions they handle through Cocoa. Something similar to the mdimport -X command.
If you have covered this topic elsewhere then please let me know.
Thanks
Phil
Scott Stevenson — Feb 18, 07 3595
I don't personally have anything to offer for this. It would be a good question for Apple's cocoa-dev mailing list.