Bowers Development has updated AppMaker — a programming tool designed to facilitate Mac application development — to version 13.1, an “interim update” designed to better support Mac OS X.
AppMaker has long generated Carbon-compatible code, now the application itself is Carbonized, according to MacTech magazine. The code generators (for C++ and PowerPlant) have minor tweaks to support custom controls and custom lists.
AppMaker 13.1 was tested with Universal Headers 3.4, Carbon 1.3b5, CodeWarrior Pro 6 (IDE 4.1), PowerPlant b211fc1, and with Mac OS X, 9.1, and 8.6. The AppMaker application is classified as a beta, at least partly because it was built with a beta release of PowerPlant. However, everything seems to work properly, according to MacTech.
Minor improvements have been made to the code generators, libraries, and project stationery for C++ and for PowerPlant. Similar improvements for AppMaker’s other languages are planned for future releases.
AppMaker’s generators and/or libraries have been updated to support the newer files that resulted from Apple making small but important changes to the Universal Header files between UH 3.3 and 3.4 and Metrowerks’ small changes to PowerPlant.
Mac OS X doesn’t support code resources such as CDEFs and LDEFs. Bowers Development has Carbonized the Pict, Palette, and ProgressBar CDEFs and now generate code to “Register” these control definitions. Along the same lines, they’ve Carbonized AppMaker’s custom LDEF and register that list definition. The project stationery includes these CDEF files.
What’s more, in AppMaker 13.1, they’ve Carbonized only the C++ and PowerPlant languages. In future updates, the folks at Bowers Development plans to Carbonize AppMaker’s Plain C, Tools Plus, and Pascal languages. In fact, from now on, they plan to only release only a Carbon version of AppMaker. They’ll no longer build a classic “fat” (68K and PPC) version of AppMaker. The generated code should continue to build for Classic PPC and Classic 68K as well as for Carbon, Bowers said.
The AppMaker 13.1 Updater can be downloaded from the Bowers Development Web site. The cost is US$199, which includes a one-year subscription.
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