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QuickDraw and Quickdraw GX aren't UI frameworks (like PowerPlant, AppKit or UIKit), and they aren't a widget library (like HIToolbox). They're much more lower-l
by AprilArcus 7y ago
QuickDraw and Quickdraw GX aren't UI frameworks (like PowerPlant, AppKit or UIKit), and they aren't a widget library (like HIToolbox). They're much more lower-level than that; drawing libraries on the level of Quartz, Cairo, Skia, or GDI.
- grey-area 7y agoOoh, that mention of PowerPlant that takes me back, I remember CodeWarrior too back in the day. Yes you're right there are various levels here - sometimes it's hard to distinguish them. There have definitely been at least 5 UI toolkits though, and probably more, though of course over the life of Mac OS that is not terribly unexpected. For those who lived through the transition to OS X, this sort of churn is not unusual, and I do think it does benefit platform vendors - they have zero incentive to keep supporting their technologies over decades and every incentive to increase churn. Quickdraw GX I remember particularly because there was such fan-fair about it as a replacement for all your graphical needs (such as drawing text), and yet it was dropped before it could even really be used (same with Quickdraw 3D). I can't remember what apple called their UI toolkit at the time, which was based on Quickdraw, then GX, but I don't think it was Carbon, that came later didn't it? I think I've found it now, was it MacApp?
- DerekL 7y agoMacApp was a framework that ran on top of HIToolkit, similar to PowerPlant. Originally it was written for Object Pascal, but later it moved to C++.