MacOS X Developer Profile: Tekadence

The Tekadence Magik development team were in for a shock when they decided to port their beta application to Mac OS X — not only would they find it incredibly easy, but they discovered their customers had already done it.

Customers using the Windows beta version of the Java-based Tekadence Magik had simply copied the Java files onto a Macintosh running Mac OS X and then launched the application. It ran — and became a clear indicator for the company of how easy porting to Mac OS X was going to be.

What is Magik?

Tekadence Magik is an intuitive, visual tool for building Java applications without writing a single line of Java code. “Coding is an annoying and very laborious process requiring specialized expertise — coding has pushed software development outside the realm of everyday creative people,” says Pete Deemer, Tekadence CEO. Tekadence Magik has been described as “Visual Basic for Java.” It’s an application authoring tool that enables WYSIWYG creation of Java software, using an object-oriented design metaphor and intuitive point and click tools. It allows drag-and-drop importing of pre-existing Java code, data, multimedia objects, and interface elements, as well as one-click integration of Web Services and other network-based objects. And until March 2002, Magik was a Windows-only application.

ADC Evangelism and User Support

“At the 2002 JavaOne convention in San Francisco, California, the Apple Java Technology Evangelist Alan Samuel asked us if we had plans to create a beta version of Magik for OS X,” explains Pete. “The Windows beta version was already released. We said no — but at the same time discovered that some of our users had simply copied all the application’s JAR files onto OS X — and Magik launched and ran. That suggestion and support from Apple and from our users was critical to our moving Magik over to Mac OS X.”

“That’s what Apple Developer Connection Evangelism is about,” Alan explains. “We find companies not currently using our technology and help them develop for Apple products and systems. At the JavaOne Convention, for example, we had engineers on hand to get Tekadence started with their port to OS X.”

With support from both Apple and their users, Tekadence decided to port Magik officially to Mac OS X. “Since our users had essentially done it already, we knew it wouldn’t be too difficult,” says Jared Kaplan, Chief Software Architect. “The port to OS X took me a week and a half from when I got the hardware,” he says.”

“It was really quite amazing, it was such an easy transition. Our initial port — basically what our customers did by simply copying files — didn’t take full advantage of the look and feel of Aqua, the Mac OS X user interface, so we spent that week and a half doing some tweaking on things like the menu treatment.”

“The Best Integration of Java Out There”

Jared found the transition back to using Macs an easy one. “After being away from the Mac for three years it was easy to come back to OS X — all the Java developer tools I was familiar with from both Linux and PC platforms were there,” Jared says. “Having JBuilder on OS X means we can now return to developing on Macs — all our programs are in JBuilder and to develop now on OS X we don’t need a separate code base or even separate project files.”

Sean Allen, Chief Technology Officer, picks up the story. “Apple has the best integration of Java right now of anyone out there. Because Java is already installed on OS X, you can build a Java program on the Mac and it simply runs like any other application.” Quicktime is also installed so programs can take advantage of that, too (on Windows, the end user, or an installer, must install Java and Quicktime). In addition to being less hassle, this means the installer download is considerably smaller. “Java is a first class citizen on the Mac,” Sean says, “And it looks better in OS X than anywhere else because it can use the Aqua interface.”

Mac OS X ships with a complete implementation of Java 2 Standard Edition, including the HotSpot virtual machine. Benefits of Apple’s Java implementation include access to Aqua user interface elements “for free” through Swing, native preemptive multitasking, multiprocessing support (with no additional coding required), and treatment of JAR files as shared libraries. This last advance improves the speed of execution and reduces the RAM footprint of applications which rely on the same archive, such as applications within suites. Additionally, Mac OS X plugs the Java windowing toolkit directly into the Mac’s native windowing toolkit, giving Java applications and applets the graphics performance benefits of Quartz, one of three powerful graphics technologies on Mac OS X.

The Aqua Advantage

Aqua is seen as a big advantage for Magik by the Tekadence development team. “In Aqua, Java applications look great — and because you can develop directly in Java on the Mac, there’s little work needed to create a cross-platform application,” says Sean.

“OS X brings several key advantages to our product,” Pete adds. “The operating system portion of the experience, the look and feel of Aqua, file systems, navigation, and the speed and stability of the plug ins. Fundamental operations are better because they’re more stable — and users will get the elegance of the user experience they’ve grown to love — Aqua and its ease of navigation.”

Aqua is the most visible expression of Mac OS X power and technology, incorporating many of the qualities and characteristics Macintosh users expect while adding advancements to benefit both expert and novice users as well. Ease of use is factored into every feature and capability. Consistent with Apple’s design philosophy, visual enhancements serve not just as beautiful images but as cues to the functionality and operation of the system. But the bottom line for both users and developers is that Aqua simply looks tremendous.

“Our team feels most proud of our product when it runs on Mac OS X,” Pete says. “OS X and the Aqua interface allow Magik to be as good as it can be — if we had our way, every user would run Magik on Mac OS X.”

Mac OS X Market Opportunities

Tekadence Magik is targeted at individuals who need to create software faster or more easily than they are currently able to do. The company believes that, just as the ease of building web pages expanded the Internet and helped make it accessible to more people, there is a similar demand for easy creation of software.

“There are people who need to develop software but don’t have the tools to do it — scientists, educators, designers,” Pete says. “And while there are more Windows users out there now, there is a higher density of our target market drawn to Mac OS X — it is creating a new breed of power users. Mac OS X is simply a great user experience — offering stability, speed, and high quality computing.”

Jared notes that education markets will find Magik extremely useful. “Kiosk-types of interactive educational applications will truly benefit from being able to create Java experiences easily.

We have one museum already using the product for exactly this kind of application.” The target markets for Magik include the 2.5 million professional Java software developers working today; 4.5 million web and multimedia developers — not programmers, but people using authoring tools to create interactive software experiences. Magik will bridge the gap between their existing skill-sets and true Java software design, enabling these audiences to create Java-based experiences using the visual design tools and authoring metaphors with which they are comfortable.

Pete is excited about the future of Magik on Mac OS X. “From five months ago and having no plans for Mac OS X development we’ve come to see Mac OS X as truly at the center of our customer base — creative users who can expand their capabilities through Java development.”

For Java developers considering Mac OS X, the Tekadence team has a strong message. “Moving to Mac OS X is absolutely a no-brainer for Java developers,” Pete says. “We have a Java application with almost 1,000 classes and the only work we had to do in porting it to OS X was some user interface tweaking.”

For more information about Tekadence and their products, visit the website at www.tekadence.com.

“Java is a first class citizen on the Mac, and it looks better in OS X than anywhere else.”

Tekadence box