More features of Apple's Leopard leaked on Web

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
A slew of unannounced features in Apple Computer's upcoming Mac OS X Leopard operating system have begun to turn up on blogs and Web sites around the web.



In particular, a posting to the Windows Vista developer community site, AeroXperience, reveals well over a dozen previously undiscussed features -- specifically those pertinent to developers. Each of the enhancements are present in a beta release of Leopard (Leopard Preview) which was handed to developers at Apple's developer conference this week.



Resolution Independence



According to the posting, Leopard will finally turn up resolution independence, a feature that has been lingering beneath the surface of Mac OS X since the first betas of Mac OS X Tiger. Resolution independent user interfaces essentially break the software assumption that all display output is to be rendered at 72 dots per inch (DPI).



The new Quartz-driven technology should let users choose between viewing more detail (more pixels per point, but fewer points on the screen) or a larger user interface (fewer pixels per point but more points on the screen) without altering the resolution of the computer's display. (For more, please see our special report from Aug. 2004).



QuickTime



Inside Leopard Preview developers find the current version of QuickTime (QuickTime 7.1) but a greatly enhanced underlying QTKit framework. Among the reported improvements are better correction for nonsquare pixels, support for aperture mode dimensions, and the use of clean aperture -- the user-displayable region of video that does not contain transition artifacts caused by the encoding process.



It's also said that Leopard's QTKit framework will offer developers QuickTime capture from sources such as cameras and microphones, full screen recording and QuickTime stream recording. Additionally, developers should be able to take live content from a capture and broadcast it as stream over a network.



Full Screen Mode and Time Machine



Meanwhile it appears that Apple's new Core Animation library will provide for some spiffy applications down the line. It allows developers to place any Mac OS X interface view into fullscreen mode and do so while using a CoreImage transition effect. Similarly, developers can tell interface windows to use explicit animations when resizing, such as the three dimensional effect Apple previewed in its demonstration Time Machine.



For those who may have missed it, Time Machine is a fascinating file backup system that Apple is building into Leopard. It works not only across the Mac OS X Finder but can also be built into third party applications. According to the web report, one of the tools Apple is giving developers is a programming interface to exclude unimportant files. Removing these files from the backup set should improves backup performance and reduces space needed for a backup.



Image Editing Enhancements and Added RAW Support



Leopard developers also gain access to an Image Kit that will allow them to easily create an application that can browse, view, crop, rotate and pick images. The kit offers the ability to apply Core Image filter effects through an interface and gives developers a slideshow interface, allowing any application to display a fullscreen slideshow of images.



Major Improvements Possible for Carbon Apps



According to the posting at AeroXperience, Carbon applications -- those build upon the Classic Mac OS programming interfaces -- can be embedded with Cocoa views under Leopard. Speculation is that this interoperability could provide applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office access to advanced functions previously only available to Cocoa applications.



Grammar Check, Multiple Clipboard and Added RSS support



Apple has also been bolstering the Mac OS X text engine, according to the report, and plans to deliver a system-wide grammar checking facility, smart quote support, automatic link detection and support for copying and pasting multiple selections.



On a separate subject, Leopard developers will gain access to a new set of RSS tools for generating, parsing, publishing, and subscribing to RSS feeds through their applications. Local feeds can even be shared over Bonjour zero-configuration sharing and discovery, the report adds.



iCal, Address Book, Automator, more



Other enhancements discovered in the Leopard Preview include shared user account and Address Book support, a new Automator workflow interface, and a new Calendar Store framework that allows developers access to calendar, event and task information from iCal for integration in their applications.



Leopard Preview reportedly ships with Apache 2.0, Ruby on Rails and Subversion. It also adds support for script-to-framework programming, allowing Python and Ruby scripting to access Mac OS X specific programming interfaces.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 142
    wilcowilco Posts: 985member
    Holy cacciatore!
  • Reply 2 of 142
    out of interest, how much of a difference is resolution independance really?
  • Reply 3 of 142
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frediography


    out of interest, how much of a difference is resolution independance really?



    Tons if you use it. For instance a nice BIG display. Or indeed the opposite I find myself doing (via the ever handy Universal Access zoom tool) where I command+option+8 text and graphics up to a more comfortable size on my 12" PB.



    Anyway .... summary: there's loads of great stuff under the new cat's skin. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for some stunning new apps. And stop whinging about the keynote as though it was missing a chorus number for the finale!
  • Reply 4 of 142
    jbljbl Posts: 555member
    What is a shared user account?
  • Reply 5 of 142
    eckingecking Posts: 1,588member
    No surprise that something vista related would be the one to leak some of leopard's secrets.
  • Reply 6 of 142
    kolchakkolchak Posts: 1,398member
    Photoshop is still Carbon? Gadzooks! How long has Cocoa been out now, five years? Come on, Adobe, stop clinging to ancient code. You have to make the change sooner or later. CS3 - Universal - Cocoa, just do it.
  • Reply 7 of 142
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kolchak


    Photoshop is still Carbon? Gadzooks! How long has Cocoa been out now, five years? Come on, Adobe, stop clinging to ancient code. You have to make the change sooner or later. CS3 - Universal - Cocoa, just do it.



    You just had to, didn't you.
  • Reply 8 of 142
    Instead of a bum, which is what I am! *



    At least ten years ago, I wondered why interfaces were laid out with absolute numbers of pixels like in Visual Basic 3, ResEdit and Interface Builder. They should have been done with a proportion (like a fraction between 0.000 and 1.000) of the length and/or width of the window. The font size of the text would be controlled by the enclosing item (button, text box) and the size of the string in the language used and mirrored vertically for right-to-left languages like Hebrew and Arabic.



    I didn't do anything with those thoughts, but now it's called "resolution independence" and it's suddenly all sexy and that! Damn, I could have been the father of all that!



    *Ten points if you can name that quote.
  • Reply 9 of 142
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,301moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kolchak


    Photoshop is still Carbon? Gadzooks! How long has Cocoa been out now, five years? Come on, Adobe, stop clinging to ancient code. You have to make the change sooner or later. CS3 - Universal - Cocoa, just do it.



    I doubt that'll ever happen. Cross platform apps don't use cocoa for the reason that those APIs are not on other platforms so it doesn't make sense to use them on the Mac especially in large programs. It would likely take too much development time.



    The furthest I could see them taking it is using Cocoa features from Carbon, which the new Xcode apparently allows. They definitely need to get a universal version out soon though. I can see it really affecting Apple's transition.
  • Reply 10 of 142
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Quote:

    how much of a difference is resolution independance really?



    From what I can see it only makes a big difference if you are working on a really large screen or a really small screen. It would make less difference for screens in the middle.



    Months ago I had someone show me resolution independence in Windows. As UI elements were enlarged they aliased or became pixilated.



    I said this is horrible why are people making such a big deal about it. At least for right now this is completely useless.



    I imagine Apple knew it was pretty useless to enlarge your UI into a pixilated mess so why bother with it until you can get all of the elements working properly.
  • Reply 11 of 142
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frediography


    out of interest, how much of a difference is resolution independance really?



    I'm not sure what you mean.





    I want it so I can get crisper text by buying higher density displays but keep the text the same size. Fonts should be described in standardized print point sizes, not pixels. So that would make the display more like printers, when someone buys a higher dpi printer, they don't expect that the printed image is half the intended size. That and when someone choses a larger system font for easier readability, without resolution independence, it breaks a lot of controls as the text gets cut off.
  • Reply 12 of 142
    dr_lhadr_lha Posts: 236member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macFanDave


    Instead of a bum, which is what I am! *



    *Ten points if you can name that quote.



    Brando from "On the Waterfront".



    I claim my ten points, which I exchange for a fully specced out Mac Pro, at the current points exchange rate.
  • Reply 13 of 142
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Was Quicktime made more quad-CPU capable? Current versions max out at two CPU utilization, some codecs can't take advantage of more than one CPU. Was MPEG-2 encoding made multi-CPU capable? iDVD takes forever to encode regardless of the number of CPUs because it will only use one CPU, or 50% of each of two CPUs, or maybe 25% of each of four CPUs.



    Was there any mention of being able to assign processes to specific CPUs?
  • Reply 14 of 142
    I hate to be ants at a picnic, but resolutions independence is going to require a lot of changes that have to be implemented in the code of an application, particularly for graphics applications.



    Since this wasn't mentioned at the keynote, the only way this is going into Leopard is if it's a big part of the NDA'd material, and even then, lots of people's apps will get screwed up.



    I'm sad too.. that was one feature I was really looking forward too.
  • Reply 15 of 142
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gregmightdothat


    I hate to be ants at a picnic, but resolutions independence is going to require a lot of changes that have to be implemented in the code of an application, particularly for graphics applications.



    Since this wasn't mentioned at the keynote, the only way this is going into Leopard is if it's a big part of the NDA'd material, and even then, lots of people's apps will get screwed up.



    I'm sad too.. that was one feature I was really looking forward too.



    I think it depends on how they set it up. If it's part of an API extension, where the behavior and look if unaware apps doesn't change, then it won't be a big deal. I think it would be a big mistake to expect all apps to be updated just to work properly in a new OS revision, I mean, requiring all apps to be updated that just recently had to be updated for Universal isn't going to win developer enthusiasm.
  • Reply 16 of 142
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,415member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gregmightdothat


    I hate to be ants at a picnic, but resolutions independence is going to require a lot of changes that have to be implemented in the code of an application, particularly for graphics applications.



    Since this wasn't mentioned at the keynote, the only way this is going into Leopard is if it's a big part of the NDA'd material, and even then, lots of people's apps will get screwed up.



    I'm sad too.. that was one feature I was really looking forward too.



    the vestiges of RI have been in the OS since Tiger shipped. Developers are likely learning right now about whether they shoule start preparing their apps or not. It shouldn't take 6 months.
  • Reply 17 of 142
    Loose lips... shaddap!



    As much as I love being kept up to date on all of the great up-and-coming features of OS XI, I would much rather Microsoft take as big a blind punch in the face as possible on this one. I'm sure most in the forums would agree with me on this one. We can all sacrifice our impatience and lust for a more depressed MS tomorrow (Spring '07).
  • Reply 18 of 142
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by psilopsyche


    Loose lips... shaddap!

    As much as I love being kept up to date on all of the great up-and-coming features of OS XI, I would much rather Microsoft take as big a blind punch in the face as possible on this one. . .



    Funnily enough, guess who is probably sending the largest (or second largest) contingent of developers to WWDC? I wonder how the developers from the MicroShaft Mac Business Unit understand the NDA. In theory, they should be absolutely forbidden from discussing secrets with anyone in the other units of the company! In reality, I'm sure Ballmer et al. come down and say, "Hey, guys, we just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars sending you to WWDC. What did you find out?"
  • Reply 19 of 142
    I made front page on AI. Nifty.
  • Reply 20 of 142
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dr_lha


    Brando from "On the Waterfront".



    I claim my ten points, which I exchange for a fully specced out Mac Pro, at the current points exchange rate.



    Excellent! Full pointage awarded!



    You are quite modest -- each point was worth a tricked-out Mac Pro or a 30" Cinema Display. Since you made your request, I will honor your request.



    Please send a handling fee of $499 along with your full name, address, Social Security Number, bank routing number, checking account number, birthday, mother's maiden name, the times your home is vacant, and if you have dogs, their names, sizes and favorite foods.



    Congratulations! Just perform those little formalities and you'll be using your Mac Pro in no time!
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