Product Reviews

If nothing else, Metrowerks' latest version of CodeWarrior has solved one problem in the Dyce household. No more sleepless nights worrying about what to take to my desert island: the documentation files for CodeWarrior Pro 6.0.

For those programmers who aren't already using it, CodeWarrior is an integrated development environment that provides the programmer with an editor in which to write code (using C, C++, Objective C or Java); the compiler to turn your code into machine code (1s and 0s) for different target machines (PowerPC, 68K, x86); a debugger that lets you run code a line at a time; and a set of code libraries and software development kits (SDKs) for simplifying the task of building applications (interface libraries for Mac and Windows, Java and multimedia classes). With CodeWarrior, you really can develop cross-platform applications using the same code base.

All this runs to quite a large amount of information, hence the size (650Mb for more than 13,000 files which come compressed on two CDs) and installation time (about 45 minutes for a full installation).

Unlike some previous full-numbered upgrades (notably Pro 4.0), version 6.0 really does pack in some new features. Most notably, both the tools and the integrated development environment (IDE) are fully 'Carbonized' - that is, they run natively under Mac OS X, making use of the Aqua interface and Mac OS X services. This isn't surprising, as CodeWarrior is the pre-eminent application development application on the Mac, and has been since the Mac OS moved to PowerPC.

CodeWarrior Pro 6.0 will let you develop code for 68K, and PowerPC, as well as (in the Combo version) Windows. However, Metrowerks says this will be the last version to support both 68K and PowerPC machines. After this, it will be PowerPC

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only, although support for non-Carbonized Mac OS 8.x will probably still be included.

As well as the new look and feel, there's a list of about 35 new or seriously improved features in this version. Now, although you should take any list of improved features in a development environment with a pinch of salt (one person's improved feature, is another's bug-fixed library), there really are a number of very welcome changes over previous versions.

If you don't use an external editor (CodeWarrior allows you to use an external code editor instead of the built in one - for example, BBEdit), then you'll soon notice that the editing environment has been tweaked. You can still select inter-capped subwords (such as the 'New' of 'myNewWind') in variable and function names (although now its control-option-click), but the control key is now used correctly for a beefed-up set of contextual menus. Finally, you can command-drag to select an area of text. And, yes, there's symbol completion to save you typing repetitive, and long, method names.

The Find function allows you to search multiple files, across multiple projects, or just in targeted folders. You can also define shielded folders in the new General Preferences panel that let you comment out folders from searches, file compares, drag-and-drop file selections and file dialog boxes. The IDE also features customisable menus, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts, a graphical file compare/merge, customisable colour syntax and so on. The list goes on. In use, the changes do make most tasks easier to accomplish.

But the really good additions are the new Mac OS features that version 6.0 brings to other developers. PowerPlant (the Metrowerks application framework and class library on which a number of commercial applications are based), has been fully Carbonized. This means it should be a straightforward process to move Classic applications written using previous versions of CodeWarrior directly to Mac OS X. The debugger is also improved, with support for multi-thread debugging.

And if that's whetted your appetite, then Metrowerks even provides free online tuition at CodeWarriorU.com with courses such as 'Introduction to C++ for Mac', 'Introduction to CodeWarrior for Mac,' and an 'Introduction to PowerPlant.'

If you're serious about programming applications on the Mac, you probably already have a copy.