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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Developer Center > Project Idea - where to start?

Project Idea - where to start?
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MDWeezer
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Feb 22, 2005, 04:21 PM
 
Well to begin with I don't even have a Mac yet .

My Mac Mini (see sig for specs) will be here by the end of the week I hope but i'm ready to dive right into to XCode.

Anyway this my project idea...

I'm looking to make a poker clock for small home tourneys that I host. I havn't been able to find anything out there for OSX but there are dozens for every other OS out there.

I figure i'll use Java + Cocoa since I already know a little bit of Java. The project won't involve much, i'll need a simple timer and a bunch of fields to hold the blind structure for each round. The rest will be developing a nice looking GUI (not a problem from what i've been seeing).

Is it very difficult to make a fullscreen app? How about capturing keystrokes?

Also, I could be wrong and this might be a feature of Tiger but there is text to speech built into OSX correct? If this is in Panther could I use this within my application (so when a round finishes I can have the app announce "Now starting round 2, large blind will be 50 and small blind will be 25". I figure this these kind of features I can make it a little fun.

So yeah, a pretty simple project but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or hints or tips or pages you could point me towards? I havn't dug into the Apple development site too much yet, just read a couple tutorials that didn't seem too bad.

Anyway, i'm very excited about getting the Mini and I can't wait to jump into things.

Thanks a lot.
     
Chuckit
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Feb 22, 2005, 06:11 PM
 
Originally posted by MDWeezer:
Is it very difficult to make a fullscreen app? How about capturing keystrokes?
I can't speak for Java (don't use it very much), but making a fullscreen app is easy enough using CoreGraphics (one of the system frameworks). It shouldn't be difficult.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "capturing keystrokes." Receiving key events sent to your app is built into the Cocoa view classes. Catching keystrokes systemwide is possible but requires polling (to my knowledge). Intercepting keystrokes and stopping other apps from getting them would be more difficult.

Originally posted by MDWeezer:
Also, I could be wrong and this might be a feature of Tiger but there is text to speech built into OSX correct? If this is in Panther could I use this within my application (so when a round finishes I can have the app announce "Now starting round 2, large blind will be 50 and small blind will be 25". I figure this these kind of features I can make it a little fun.
Yeah, that's doable and should work in any version. Text-to-speech has been there since Mac OS 7.

Originally posted by MDWeezer:
So yeah, a pretty simple project but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or hints or tips or pages you could point me towards? I havn't dug into the Apple development site too much yet, just read a couple tutorials that didn't seem too bad.
Well, you seem to have some knowledge of programming already, so Apple's documentation will probably be the biggest help to you. Unfortunately, most Cocoa documentation and tips are written with Objective-C programmers in mind, so even if you don't want to use it, getting a little bit familiar with Objective-C would probably be useful to you just so you can understand what you read.
Chuck
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Zimwy
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Feb 23, 2005, 05:27 PM
 
Here's a good link to how to do fullscreen:

http://www.cocoadevcentral.com/articles/000028.php

It's in obj-c though. I don't know how you mix java with it

gabe
     
Detrius
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Mar 3, 2005, 07:23 PM
 
Originally posted by MDWeezer:
...I figure i'll use Java + Cocoa since I already know a little bit of Java...
The difficult part is going to be learning the API. The programming language is the easy part. Don't torture yourself with doing Cocoa in Java--just learn the Objective-C. Both languages are based on C, so you really don't have much to learn--just the way the classes are used. Besides, then you can say you know Java AND Cocoa, and you won't have to worry about misleading people with that claim.
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Samad
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Mar 4, 2005, 12:41 AM
 
If you're just starting out on a Mac, begin with something easy like REALbasic. REALbasic can do exactly what you would like it to do. There's no point in rushing in and trying to learn Cocoa. Gradually working your way up is the best way, even though it requires a tremendous amount of patience.
     
PBG4 User
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Mar 4, 2005, 04:57 PM
 
Originally posted by Samad:
If you're just starting out on a Mac, begin with something easy like REALbasic. REALbasic can do exactly what you would like it to do. There's no point in rushing in and trying to learn Cocoa. Gradually working your way up is the best way, even though it requires a tremendous amount of patience.
Maybe so, but REALbasic would require another ca$h outlay, whereas everything you need for programming in Java or Obj-C comes in the OS X box (or system discs).
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Detrius
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Mar 9, 2005, 10:50 PM
 
Originally posted by Samad:
If you're just starting out on a Mac, begin with something easy like REALbasic. REALbasic can do exactly what you would like it to do. There's no point in rushing in and trying to learn Cocoa. Gradually working your way up is the best way, even though it requires a tremendous amount of patience.
But Objective-C and Java are both based on C, so there's really not much to learn. With REALbasic, you are learning a different programming language AND API.
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Wevah
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Mar 10, 2005, 12:05 AM
 
I'm gonna have to side with Obj-C/Cocoa.
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