How hard is it , in general, to port OPENSTEP apps to Mac OS X? I've got the source code for an OPENSTEP VNCviewer, but no Cocoa-Objective C experience. Would it be a simple recompile with a little tweaking of the UI, or a major rewrite?

[bewebste]

It can vary a lot depending on what kind of stuff the app does. Some simple apps might compile without changes, others may need major rewrites. The one you have sounds like it would probably need some major mods, since the graphics system has changed substantially since Openstep days, and VNC probably needs to have fairly fine control over its graphics.

[ali]

The developer package contains old release notes for all changes since NextStep 3.3 (AppKitPrePublicBeta.html). Some of the very old notes have less detail, but they will probably still be useful in determining what changed and what didn't as you convert your application.

First thing you will notice is the change in the file system layout has rendered the hardwired paths in the Makefiles useless, so your builds will fail immediately. The conversion script in /Developer/Makefiles/Conversion should help with this.

You should also open your nib files in InterfaceBuilder, fix up the layout for Aqua (there is a menu command for this), and resave them.

Other that that there are small API changes here and there (pay attention to compiler warnings and look at the release notes); the biggest change is probably the removal of PostScript, as bewebste mentioned. Conversion to NSBezierPath or Quartz will be straightforward in some cases, in others less so.

Ali

Has anyone got vncview working on OS/X??

There is a java client also?