[ckohler]

First up.. I'm not a developer or programer. I do know a thing or two about what's involved in writing programs, though.

I've had a neat idea that I'd like to suggest to the programmer of a carbon webcam program, but I'm not sure if this feature is implimented in the Carbon frameworks. Several Cocca applications I've seen (OmniWeb, Terminal, Quicktime) have displayed the abilitiy to update their minimized preview in the dock in real time. For example, if you click a link on a webpage in Omniweb and then quickly minimize the window, you'll actually see the new page render in the minimized icon down in the trey. Can carbon apps do this?

My idea is to ask the programmer of the webcam app to make it so that the video preview window updates in real time when it's minimized. That way, I could run the webcam program and always have my preview window sitting in the dock in case I want to see if I'm on camera. Even if it only updated every 10 seconds or during an upload, that would be pretty dang cool and usefull effect.

Thoughts?

[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: ckohler ]

[Scrod]

I'm know this is possible, but it probably requires some extra work. Heck, Son of Weather Grok (a freakin REALBASIC app!!) can do this! (SWG is a good app--I'm not putting it down).

[starfleetX]

QuickTime is not Cocoa, FYI.

[Wixar]

This is not only possible, it's easy. Carbon, Cocoa, and even Quartz all have APIs to adjust both application and minimized window Dock icons. See http://developer.apple.com/ue/dock.html for an explanation of how.

-Peter

[ckohler]

Thanks guys. It's a shame that so few programs are currently taking advantage of the dock in this manner. Realtime, visual updates in the dock (either from a mimized window or the app icon) can go a long way in saving desktop space where a floating window would otherwise be needed. I'll be suggesting this idea to the webcam software developer.

[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: ckohler ]