Core Animation
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Core Animation tutorial screencasts
The Pragmatic Bookshelf has published a series of Core Animation tutorials, that are available for purchase and download. These four screencasts walk you through the process of building Xcode projects and incorporating Core Animation features into them. Each tutorial runs for about a twenty to thirty minutes and includes a live voice over by developer Bill Dudney. They take you step-by-step through the development process for several projects. Don't look for a general overview of Core Animation and the technology behind it in these videos. They take it for granted that you know the vocabulary (such as layers and timing functions) and that you understand what Core Animation should do. The videos help you to move that knowledge into Xcode. These videos are best for the self-reliant programmer who's looking for a little bit of low-cost hand-holding while getting started. Each of the four tutorials cost five dollars and are available in both full-screen and iPod-compatible resolutions.
Bookwatch: Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X gets updated
Way back in December, our Christmas Gift Guide featured our pick of the many OS X-related books out there. One of the recommendations was the (very excellent) Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass - commonly referred to as 'The Bible' in the Mac development community.At the time the book was a little outdated -- however in the last couple of weeks an updated third edition has been published. New sections feature Objective-C 2.0, Core Data, Garbage Collection, Xcode 3 and Core Animation, meaning this third edition is all ready for many of the new technologies in Mac OS X Leopard.At just $32 (via Amazon.com), this updated version clearly ought to be on every developer's bookshelf (and aspiring developer's wishlist).
24 hours of Leopard: Core Animation
Feature: Core AnimationHow it works: Core Animation is a new framework in Leopard. This framework makes it easy for developers to harness the graphics power in OS X for their own applications. Using layers, a developer can animate a number of different objects of different types (including video, images, and OpenGL renderings) and apply different effects to each. Core Animation does the heavy lifting of actually figuring out what needs to happen in each frame (developers set the start, the end, and some key frames and Core Animation does the rest). Core Animation is going to usher in some astounding new UI on the Mac (Time Machine is a great example of what is to come).Who will use it: Developers will use it directly, but only who uses apps built on the Core Animation framework will benefit from it.
Delicious Library 2 preview
Scott Stevenson has posted a very short but sweet preview of Delicious Library 2, due out sometime after Leopard hits next week (according to Wil Shipley, it may be as late as February). The already beautiful program (that coined a generation) looks better than ever, and it's made better, we're told, by all the great stuff going into Leopard, from Core Animation to the new Quicklook (you'll be able to drag books and DVDs out of the library to make little files of their own, which will then be viewable in Quicklook itself). And there's other touches, too-- selected items glow, when you delete a book it "shatters," and details don't just appear, they "pop into view" like on the iPhone.And there are updates behind the graphics, too-- a faster barcode scanner, some super seekrit features (that is "worth the purchase price" for parents-- ??), and sharing features, which means finally, this program has a real purpose other than just staring at the stuff you own. You'll be able to share your collection with friends and even strangers-- can't wait to see how that works.Sounds like fun. Stevenson says he wants Delicious Library 2 to set the benchmark for the first generation of Leopard apps, so we can definitely expect big, shiny stuff from these folks. Please, Delicious, show us how it's done.
Leopard's Core Animation to herald more than shiny tricks
Steve Jobs demoed some exciting features last year that are coming in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but one of the most fundamentally cool that might have been overlooked is Core Animation. While it certainly isn't quite a feature that us end users can directly click on and use, it is an entirely new set of user interface paradigms and tools Apple has developed for 3rd parties to build into their apps (i.e. - stuff we will be able to see, click and and say 'wow' to). Since Apple has been putting developer builds into the hands of people that need them, some of the most notable of these devs have announced Leopard-only versions of their apps, including Allan Odgaard (TextMate), Wil Shipley (Delicious Library) and Gus Mueller (FlySketch and also VoodooPad). Citing various reasons for going Leopard-only, Core Animation has remained one of the constant but underestimated factors for diving into Leopard and not looking back. To help explain more of just what is so interesting in Core Animation, Wired's Scott Gilbertson has just written up a great piece elaborating a bit more on just how much Core Animation will change how user interfaces in both Mac OS X and 3rd party apps are thought about and designed. Gilbertson includes a few choice quotes from notable 3rd party developers, and even manages to point out that, in a few ways, the so-called 'Delicious Generation' might have been a little ahead of their time by experimenting with animation and new forms of UI. Gilbertson's article is a great read for anyone who can't wait until Monday to get another peek into how much potential Leopard holds for changing the face of computing and user interfaces as we know them.
