Interoperability
Interoperability refers to a program’s ability to communicate across environments. This communication can occur at either the user or the program level and can involve processes on the current computer or on remote computers. At the program level, an interoperable program supports ways to move data back and forth between itself and other programs. It might therefore support the pasteboard and be able to read file formats from other programs on either the same or a different platform. It also makes sure that the data it creates can be read by other programs on the system.
Users see interoperability in features such as the pasteboard (the Clipboard in the user interface), drag and drop, AppleScript, Bonjour, and services in the Services menu. All of these features provide ways for the user to get data into or out of an application.
Table 7-6 lists some Mac OS X technologies that you can use to improve the interoperability of your software.
Technology | Description |
|---|---|
AppleScript is a scripting system that gives users direct control over your application as well as parts of Mac OS X. See AppleScript Overview for information on supporting AppleScript. | |
Although primarily implemented in applications, you can add drag and drop support to any program with a user interface. See Drag Manager Reference or Drag and Drop Programming Topics for Cocoa for information on how to integrate drag and drop support into your program. | |
Both Carbon and Cocoa support cut, copy, and paste operations through the pasteboard. See the | |
Bonjour | Your program can vend network services or use Bonjour to be a client of an existing network service. For more information, see “Bonjour.” |
Services let the user perform a specific operation in your application using data on the pasteboard. Services use the pasteboard to exchange data but act on that data in a more focused manner than a standard copy-and-paste operation. For example, a service might create a new mail message and paste the data into the message body. See Setting Up Your Carbon Application to Use the Services Menu or System Services for information on setting up an application to use services. | |
XML is a structured format that can be used for data interchange. Mac OS X provides extensive support for reading, writing, and parsing XML data. For more information, see “XML Parsing Libraries.” |
Last updated: 2007-10-31
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