[munificent]

for me, one of the coolest things about the mac os is the ability to extend system functionality with things like extensions, control panels, contextual menu plug-ins, and control strip modules.

does anyone know if os x will support similar architectures?

[Millennium]

To varying degrees, yes.

Control strip modules: not directly. However, OpenStrip is taking over that functionality. Modules need to be recompiled, but that's generally all.

Contextual menu plugins: Not in Beta. I suspect this will change for Final; the current contextual menus are anemic, to say the least.

Control Panels: Yup. Again, not quite the same as we know them; they show up as panels in the System Preferences app (assuming Apple opens this API or someone manages to use class-dump to figure it out, as they did for screensavers).

Extensions as faceless background apps: Yes! Those that were implemented as faceless background applications (like some of the RC5 clients) are there, though in UNIX-speak they're called daemons. Some examples of current apps that provide this sort of functionality are Classic Menu and the various menubar clocks (whether they're actually implemented as daemons I don't know, but they could be).

Extensions as INITs (those things that show up as a little parade of icons when OS9 boots up and patch the system): I don't know, but probably not. These end up being, by and large, more trouble than they're worth, because of the instability they cause (particularly in combination with each other). Don't be too alarmed, though: most OS9 extensions could be reimplemented as either FBA's or Frameworks (OS9 and Linux call these "shared libraries"; Windows calls them DLL's), or other things which are supported.

The only ones I'm not sure about are the ones that truly do have to patch the system. RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler are examples of this, though I don't think they'll be particularly missed considering OSX's built-in technologies.

Then you have Kaleidoscope and its ilk. I won't say they can't be done; OSX is powerful enough that it's certainly possible. Considering that IconFactory's iControl is said to have an OSX-compatible version in the works, I'd even say it's likely that they're doable. But in this particular case, it's likely to be extremely difficult, and could take a very long time to port even with the famously easy Cocoa API's.

So what do you lose by losing extensions? Really, not very much. And what you do lose, I doubt you will miss, because the little you'll lose caused more trouble than it was ever really worth.

[munificent]

thanks, that's very helpful.

i definitely understand that the old method of patching traps was a little, uh, sketchy, but it did allow for some nice improvements.

since it seems that apple has given up a lot of usability in the implementation of the desktop, it would be nice if at the very least there was an architecture in place for third party developers to put it back in.

or maybe i just miss the finder.

a few more questions:

will daemons be able to call interface api routines?

what is an fba?

i've read some about frameworks, but i wasn't under the impression that a shared library would do anything in and of itself. will the os know to load certain frameworks or frameworks of certain types?

thanks, millenium, you've been very helpful.