[i_wolf]

Hi Guys,
While im used to coding on PC platform, I'm relatively new to coding on the Mac platform. However I'm learning and enjoying all the same.
Im interested in developing a plugin for work for Apple's Keynote. Can anyone tell me if they have any experience themselves doing same?
Can you suggest a good starting point for learning how to develop a plugin?
I checked on the ADC but didn't find much relevant information.
If you have developed a plugin; can you tell me if there is an open plugin type architecture for Apple apps, similar to the way you can use Visual Studio to create plugin for MS Office on Windows based on office plugin architecture???.
Primarily i want to port a plugin we developed for MS Office to Keynote on Mac.
Any advice is extremely gratefully recieved
Kind Regards,
i_wolf


One thing i forgot to mention is that i have found some infor on using APXML (apple presentation xml ) however i was hoping to develop a cocoa based plugin since i don't have any proper grounding in XML. is this possible?? or do i have to use APXML? I am willing to learn if necessary... essentially i want to create a java client to control the slide show... next slide, forward slide etc.....
Any advice?

[larkost]

Since I don't have Keynote, I can't be sure, but from a quick tour around the net, it seems that Keynote is not AppleScriptable (think VBScript but better). This puts a definite kink in the works, but is not in-surmountable. To get arround this you will have use [url=http://www.apple.com/applescript/uiscripting/]GUI scripting[url] to simulate a user doing the actions you want done. This is definitely hack-ish and the machine you are working on will have to have UI Scripting installed. But for what it sounds like you want to do, it would work.

Now, you said you wanted this to be in Java, so the best way of getting to UI Scripting would be to make a Cocoa-Java Application, and then bridge to some AppleScript calls to send the actual messages.

On the APXML side... that is the document format. XML is all about data. Microsoft has made their RMI interface format it's messages in a form of XML (Soap), but XML is not a programming language. If you were to want to create Keynote presentations, then APXML would be a great thing to learn. But since this does not sound like what you want, I would get used to AppleScript instead.

PS... we can both hope that the next version of Keynote supports AppleScript in a real way.

[i_wolf]

thanks a mill for your input. much appreciated.
yeh i was thinking about the whole cocoa approach... as in a cocoa listener to applescript for keynote... and then having a java client on remote device..
remote device -> cocoa listener on keynote machine -> relay commands to applescript.

but that lack of applescript for keynote kinda puts a kink in the works!

You caught me attention with cocoa-java... as a new mac developer i thought that cocoa was purely a framework that you developed with using objective c. Thats all i have used so far in my limited experience with Cocoa. From what you are saying (for example) does that mean you have a java controller behind a document as opposed to an objective c one???

By the way on a separate note, this guy here http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Clicker/ found a way to control keynote from a mobile phone (pretty cool ) do you reckon he was using GUI scripting like you were saying???? Must be?

Any further help much appreciated.
Thanks a lot larkost.
Regards,
i_wolf

[larkost]

Cocoa actually refers to a number of FrameWorks. They happen to be written in Obj-C, but there is a near-complete bridging of them to Java (called Cocoa-Java). When you use ProjectBuilder/XCode to make an application nearly every option has both a Obj-C and Java version (except the core stuff.. and the Swing application stuff.. oh and WebObjects if you have it).

In fact there are small bridges to Perl (CamelBones), Python, AppleScript (AppleScript Studio Applications), Tcl, and others. You really do have a lot of choices when it comes to programming languages on MacOS X.

With Cocoa-Java you get to use all of your normal Java constructs, and then use MacOS X's wonderful InterfaceBuilder to add and wire-up your interface. Once you get your feet wet in it you will never what to use other Dev Environments. Here are a coupple of links to get you going:

If you have the dev tools installed: file:///Developer/Documentation/Cocoa/Java-title.html

If not: http://developer.apple.com/documenta...ial/index.html

On the Keynote side, here is a link to Apple's description of what Salling Clicker uses to controll Keynote, it is very definitely GUI scripting.

[Angus_D]

There doesn't appear to be a plugin API for Keynote.