# Macintosh Python crash course

This set of documents provides an introduction to various aspects of Python programming on the Mac. It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with Python and, to some extent, with MacOS Toolbox programming. Other readers may find something interesting here too, your mileage may vary.

There is a companion document Using Python on the Mac which you should read before starting here: it explains the basics of using python on the Macintosh.

Another set of Macintosh-savvy examples, more aimed at beginners, is maintained by Joseph Strout, at http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/python/.

The Python Library Reference contains a section on Macintosh-specific modules that you should also read. Documentation is also available in PostScript and other forms, see the documentation section on the webserver.

Some of these documents were actually written while I was working on a "real" project: creating a single-button application that will allow my girlfriend to read her mail (which actually pass thry my mailbox, so I get to read it too, but don't tell her:-) without her having to worry about internet connections, unix commands, etc. The application, when finished, will connect to the net using InterSLIP, start a (pseudo-)POP server on unix using rsh and use AppleScript to tell Eudora to connect to that server and retrieve messages.

These examples were all built using Python 1.3.3, which can be downloaded from ftp.cwi.nl, directory /pub/jack/python/mac, and possibly from the ftp.python.org server and its mirrors as well. Some examples may work with earlier versions of Python, some will definitely not.

## Table of contents

- Using python to create Macintosh applications, part zero whets your appetite by showing you how to ask the user for a filename, and how to display a message. It explains about end-of-line confusion while doing so.
- Using python to create Macintosh applications, part one explains how to create a simple modal-dialog application in Python. It also takes a glance at using the toolbox modules Res and Dlg, and EasyDialogs for simple question-dialogs.
- Using python to create Macintosh applications, part two turns the previous example program into a more complete mac application, using a modeless dialog, menus, etc. It also explains how to create applets, standalone applications written in Python.
- Using FrameWork and TextEdit shows you how to use `FrameWork` application framework and the `TextEdit` toolbox to build a text editor.
- Using WASTE expands on this editor by using WASTE, an extended TextEdit replacement.
- Creating a C extension module on the Macintosh is meant for the hardcore programmer, and shows how to create an extension module in C. It also handles using Modulator to create the boilerplate for your module, and creating dynamically-loadable modules on PowerPC Macs.
- Using Open Scripting Architecture from Python explains how to create a Python module interfacing to a scriptable application, and how to use that module in your python program.
- Using python to create CGI scripts is a preliminary introduction to writing CGI scripts in Python and to writing scriptable applications in Python.
- Building Mac Python from source explains how to build a PPC or 68K interpreter from a source distribution.

The Python distribution contains a few more examples, all unexplained:

- PICTbrowse is an application that locates PICT resources and displays them, it demonstrates some quickdraw and the resource and list managers.
- Imgbrowse displays image files in many different formats (gif, tiff, pbm, etc). It shows how to use the img modules on the mac.
- Quicktime has the standard `MovieInWindow` and `VerySimplePlayer` examples, re-coded in Python.
- Resources, Sound and Speech have some examples on using the respective managers.

At some point in the (possibly distant) future, I will add chapters on how to use bgen to create modules completely automatic and how to make your Python program scriptable, but that will have to wait.

Please let me know if you miss critical information in this document. I am quite sure that I will never find the time to turn it into a complete MacPython programmers guide (which would probably be a 400-page book instead of 5 lousy html-files), but it should contain at least the information that is neither in the standard Python documentation nor in Inside Mac or other Mac programmers documentation.

Jack Jansen, jack@cwi.nl, 09-September-1996.