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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/11584
BOOK REVIEWS CORE ANIMATION FOR MAC OS X/IPHONE REVIEW BY RIC GETTER Their book is far more than a syntactical reference for this powerful toolbox. It offers a splendid discussion of why, when and how to use these new tools. The book begins with an overview of how Core Animation is implemented and how to set up Xcode 3.1 and 3.2 to work with the calls. The concept of layers is fundamental to understanding how to use the Core Animation tool set. It’s quite different than traditional approaches to programming animation. However, you’ll soon discover that it’s a great way to show off your design genius without having to be a math whiz. Another one of the strengths of Core Animation is how well it integrates with the many other components available to developers such as the Interface Builder, Quartz Composer and a wide gamut of QuickTime tools. Even though Core Animation is, in and of itself, an efficient approach to animating elements of an application, there are a number of tips and tricks to help conserve as many system resources as possible for the other elements of your application. Core Animation is one of the Mac OS‘s coolest tricks. It’s been around since Leopard and personally wants to make me shout out to Windows Vista/7’s Aero fans, “Hey! ‘dat the best you got?” It plays a starring role in many of Apple‘s own interface elements and is showing up in more and more third-party apps ranging from Prosoft‘s Drive Geniusto Telestream‘s Screen Flow. But to enter this magically animated kingdom, you need to know the right spells (okay, “system calls”). And they can be found in new book by Marcus Zarra (co-author of the popular Cocoa Is My Girlfriendblog) and Matt Long, CoreAnimationforMac OSX/iPhone. The book marks the debut of Addison-Wesley’s new Core Frameworkseries for OS X and iPhone developers. Zarra and Long dedicate an entire chapter to performance optimization, including how to avoid some of the potential pitfalls of a comparatively new technology that works with everything from handheld to a multi-core desktop machine. The book was published too early to take into account the iPad, but the book will no doubt be useful to developers seeking to scale their applications up (or down) to the new platform’s nine-inch screen. “Core Animation has an abundance of examples of well-commented code and full color (of course) illustrations.” Core Animationhas an abundance of examples of well-commented code and full color (of course) illustrations. The example applications the authors provide are comparatively short, to-the-point and easy to follow. It’s bound to open up some new horizons for your existing projects and may even inspire some new ones. Core Animation for Mac OS X/iPhoneby Marcus Zarra and Matt Long; $44.99, Addison-Wesley (informit.com); 245 pgs. ISBN 978-0-321-61775-0 46 MacDirectory