X: Inside Mac OS X System Overview

290 Pages·2001·2.924 MB·English

by  Developer Library

I N S I D E M A C O S X
System Overview

February 2001
Apple Computer, Inc. AirPort, Carbon, Cocoa, iBook, iMac, Some states do not allow the exclusion or
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Contents
Figures, Listings, and Tables 11
Chapter 1 About This Book 15
Why Read This Book 15
Further Investigations 17
Installed Developer Documentation 17
Other Apple Publications 19
Information on BSD 19
Other Information on the Web 19
Chapter 2 System Technologies 21
The User Experience 22
Aqua 23
The Finder 24
Application Support 26
Multiple Users 27
Internationalization 28
Application Extensibility 28
Exported Application Services 29
Other Parts of the User Experience 30
Darwin 30
Mach 31
BSD 32
Device-Driver Support 32
Networking Extensions 33
File Systems 33
Darwin and Open Source Development 35
Graphics and Imaging 35
Quartz 36
QuickDraw 37
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C O N T E N T S
OpenGL 38
QuickTime 38
Printing 39
Apple Type Solution 40
Networking and the Internet 41
Media Types 41
Standard Protocols 42
Legacy Network Services and Protocols 43
Routing and Multihoming 43
Personal File and Web Services 43
Advanced Hardware Features 44
USB 44
FireWire 45
Velocity Engine 45
AirPort 45
Chapter 3 System Architecture 47
A Layered Perspective 48
Application Environments 53
Carbon 53
Cocoa 56
Java 57
The Graphics and Windowing Environment 60
Core Graphics Services 62
Core Graphics Rendering 63
The Printing System 65
The User Interface of the Printing System 66
Summary of Printing Architecture 67
Printer Discovery 69
The Printing Process 69
Other Application Services 70
Process Manager 70
Carbon Event Manager 71
Apple Events 71
The Clipboard 71
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C O N T E N T S
Core Services 72
Carbon Managers 72
Core Foundation 74
Open Transport 76
Tracking a User Event 77
Chapter 4 Booting and Logging In 81
The Boot Sequence 81
BootROM 82
BootX 82
Kernel Initialization 83
System Initialization 83
The rc.boot and rc Scripts 84
Startup Items 84
The Login Procedure 87
Authenticating Users 88
Setting Up the User Environment 89
Launching the Finder and the Dock 89
System Daemons 90
Logging Out and System Shutdown 92
Customization Techniques 94
Customizing Booting Behavior 95
Customizing the Login Procedure 97
Chapter 5 Bundles 101
Benefits of Using Bundles 102
Anatomy of a Bundle 103
The Finder and Bundles 108
Types of Bundles 109
An Application’s Main Bundle 110
Framework Bundles 110
Loadable Bundles and Dynamic Linking 110
Localized Resources 111
Localized Character Strings 112
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C O N T E N T S
Search Algorithm 113
Bundles and the Resource Manager 115
Chapter 6 Application Packaging 117
An Application Is a Bundle 117
Application Frameworks, Libraries, and Helpers 119
Private Frameworks 120
Shared Frameworks and the Central Directory 121
Other Shared Application Code 122
Applications and Loadable Bundles 123
User Resources in Applications 124
Application Help 124
Application Preferences 125
Document Resources 126
Chapter 7 Frameworks 127
The Framework as a Library Package 128
The Internal Structure of Frameworks 129
Standard Locations for Frameworks 131
Dynamic Shared Libraries 132
Framework Versioning 134
Major Versions 135
Minor Versions 136
Versioning Summary and Guidelines 137
Chapter 8 Umbrella Frameworks 141
Kinds of Frameworks 142
The Purpose of Umbrella Frameworks 143
Linking and Including Guideline 145
The Structure of an Umbrella Framework 146
Restrictions on Subframework Linking 148
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C O N T E N T S
Chapter 9 The File System 151
How the File System Is Organized 151
File-System Domains 153
The System and Local Domains 154
Directories of the Classic Environment 156
The User Domain 157
The Network Domain 161
The Library Directory 162
The Developer Directory 164
Searching Within the File-System Domains 166
Differences Between HFS+ and UFS 167
Aliases and Symbolic Links 168
Resource Forks 170
File Encodings and Fonts 172
Chapter 10 The Finder 175
The Role of the Finder 175
Finder Interfaces to Applications 177
Information Property Lists 177
Information Stored by the Finder 178
Collecting Application Information 178
The Desktop Folder 179
Finder Attributes 179
The Handling of Applications and Documents 180
The Finder and File Operations 181
Copy and Move Operations 182
Management of Aliases and Symbolic Links 183
Chapter 11 Software Configuration 185
Property Lists 185
Information Property Lists 186
Document Configuration 187
An Example of an Information Property List 188
Standard Keys 191
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C O N T E N T S
Finder Keys 193
Application Package Keys 195
Launch Services Keys 197
The Preferences System 197
How Preferences Are Stored 198
Preference Domains 199
The defaults Utility 200
Chapter 12 Internationalization 203
Internationalizing Your Application 204
Language Preferences and Bundle Resources 205
Designating Languages and Locales 207
Tools for Internationalization and Localization 208
Localizing User Interfaces 211
Localizing Strings 212
Composing a Strings File 212
Generating Strings Files 214
Adding Multiscript Support 215
Chapter 13 Installation and Integration 219
Preparing Software for Mac OS X 219
Applications and Documents FAQ 220
What metadata must I specify for an application? 220
Must I package my CFM executable in a bundle? 221
How should I store application resources? 221
How do I indicate document types in Mac OS X? 223
Can I treat my plug-ins as documents? 223
How does the Finder handle documents? 223
Why even have extensions? 224
How should my application save documents? 225
CFM Executables 225
User Interface Issues 228
Icons 229
Custom Controls and System Appearance 229
Carbon Nib Files 230
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C O N T E N T S
Ownership and Permissions 230
Overview of BSD Permissions 231
File Permissions on Mac OS X 233
Permissions for Applications and Documents 234
The Classic Environment and Your Application 235
Overview of the Classic Environment 236
Compatibility With Native Mac OS 9 236
Device Support 237
Integration With Mac OS X 238
User Interface 238
The Classic Environment and File Systems 239
Extensions and Preferences 240
The Finder and the Desktop 240
Networking and Printing 241
Other Classic Integration Issues 242
Installing Your Application 242
Where to Install 242
Manual Installation 243
Installers 244
Installation Packages 246
Creating an Installation Package 246
System-Wide Resources 250
Chapter 14 Issues and Options With Multiple Environments 251
Tasks and Processes 251
Threading Packages 252
Layering Details 254
Usage Guidelines 254
Interprocess Communication 255
Communicating With Apple Events 256
Broadcasting Simple Notifications 257
Transferring Raw Data With CFMessagePort 257
Communicating With BSD Sockets 257
Communicating With BSD Pipes 258
Handling Exceptions With BSD Signals 259
Sharing Large Resources With Shared Memory 259
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C O N T E N T S
Making Services Available to Other Applications 260
Calling Other Processes With Distributed Objects 260
Messaging With the Mach Port Object 260
Library Managers and Executable Formats 261
Comparing the Runtime Environments 261
CFM and dyld 262
PEF and Mach-O 262
Code-Generation Models 262
Vector Libraries 263
CFM Executable and Non-Carbon APIs 264
Should You Use CFM or dyld? 264
Glossary
267
Index
281
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Apple Computer, Inc. February 2001