=========== PyObjC NEWS =========== An overview of the relevant changes in new, and older, releases. Version 1.1 (2004-05-30) ------------------------ - KVO now actually works from Python without using nasty hacks. - Added Xcode template for document-based applications Version 1.1b2 (2004-04-11) -------------------------- - More fine-grained multi-threading support - Xcode templates use a smarter embedded main program - Add support for WebObjects 4.5 (a one-line patch!) - Add a PackageManager clone to the Examples directory - Add better support for NSProxy This makes it possible to use at Distributed Objects, although this feature has not received much testing - Function 'objc.protocolNamed' is the Python equivalent of the @protocol expression in Objective-C. - Add several new examples Version 1.1b1 (2004-02-20) --------------------------- - Fixes some regressions in 1.1 w.r.t. 1.0 - Add Xcode templates for python files You can now select a new python file in the 'add file...' dialog in Xcode - Fix installer for Panther: the 1.1a0 version didn't behave correctly - There is now an easier way to define methods that conform to the expectations of Cocoa bindings:: class MyClass (NSObject): def setSomething_(self, value): pass setSomething_ = objc.accessor(setSomething_) def something(self): return "something!" something = objc.accessor(something) It is not necessary to use ``objc.accessor`` when overriding an existing accessor method. Version 1.1a0 (2004-02-02) -------------------------- - Objective-C structs can now be wrapped using struct-like types. This has been used to implement wrapper types for NSPoint, NSSize, NSRange and NSRect in Foundation and NSAffineTransformStruct in AppKit. This means you can now access the x-coordinate of a point as ``aPoint.x``, accessing ``aPoint[0]`` is still supported for compatibility with older versions of PyObjC. It is still allowed to use tuples, or other sequences, to represent Objective-C structs. NOTE: This has two side-effects that may require changes in your programs: the values of the types mentioned above are no longer immutable and cannot be used as keys in dicts or elements in sets. Another side-effect is that a pickle containing these values created using this version of PyObjC cannot be unpickled on older versions of PyObjC. - This version adds support for NSDecimal. This is a fixed-point type defined in Cocoa. - NSDecimalNumbers are no longer converted to floats, that would loose information. - If an Objective-C method name is a Python keyword you can now access it by appending two underscores to its name, e.g. someObject.class__(). The same is true for defining methods, if you define a method 'raise__' in a subclass of NSObject it will registered with the runtime as 'raise'. NOTE: Currently only 'class' and 'raise' are treated like this, because those are the only Python keywords that are actually used as Objective-C method names. - Experimental support for instanceMethodForSelector: and methodForSelector:. This support is not 100% stable, and might change in the future. - Backward incompatible change: class methods are no longer callable through the instances. - Integrates full support for MacOS X 10.3 (aka Panther) - Adds a convenience/wrapper module for SecurityInterface - It is now safe to call from Objective-C to Python in arbitrary threads, but only when using Python 2.3 or later. - Fixes some issues with passing structs between Python and Objective-C. - Uses the Panther version of ``NSKeyValueCoding``, the Jaguar version is still supported. - method ``updateNSString`` of ``objc.pyobjc_unicode`` is deprecated, use create a new unicode object using ``unicode(mutableStringInstance)`` instead. - NSAppleEventDescriptor bridged to Carbon.AE - LibFFI is used more aggressivly, this should have no user-visible effects other than fixing a bug related to key-value observing. - Adds a number of new Examples: * OpenGLDemo Shows how to use OpenGL with PyObjC * SillyBallsSaver Shows how to write a screensaver in Python. Requires a framework install of Python (that is, MacOS X 10.3 or MacPython 2.3 on MacOS X 10.2). * Twisted/WebServicesTool Shows how to integrate Twisted (1.1 or later) with Cocoa, it is a refactor of the WebServicesTool example that is made much simpler by using Twisted. * Twisted/WebServicesTool-ControllerLayer Shows how to integrate Twisted (1.1 or later) with Cocoa, it is a refactor of the WebServicesTool example that is made much simpler by using Twisted as it does not need threads. This one also uses NSController and therefore requires MacOS X 10.3. Version 1.0 (2003-09-21) ------------------------ - This version includes a new version of libffi that properly deals with complex types on MacOS X. Version 1.0rc3 (2003-09-14) --------------------------- - 1.0rc2 didn't include the nibclassbuilder script - Fix bug in NSRectFillList Version 1.0rc2 (2003-09-10) --------------------------- - Fix a number of bugs found in 1.0rc1. Version 1.0rc1 (2003-08-10) --------------------------- - Better support for the NSKeyValueCoding protocol. The module ``PyObjCTools.KeyValueCoding`` provides a python interface that makes it possible to use key-value coding with python objects as well as Objective-C objects. Key-Value Coding also works as one would expect with Python objects when accessing them from Objective-C (both for plain Python objects and Python/Objective-C hybrid objects). - objc.pyobjc_unicode objects are now pickled as unicode objects, previously the couldn't be pickled or were pickled as incomplete objects (protocol version 2). - Pickling of ObjC objects never worked, we now explicitly throw an exception if you try to pickle one: pickle protocol version 2 silently wrote the incomplete state of objects to the pickle. - The default repr() of ObjC objects is now the result of a call to the ``description`` method. This method is not called for unitialized objects, because that might crash the interpreter; we use a default implementation in that case. - A minor change to the conversion rule for methods with output arguments (pointers to values in ObjC, where the method will write through the pointer). If the method has 'void' as its return type, we used to return a tuple where the first value is always None. This first element is no longer included, furthermore if the method has only 1 output argument we no longer return a tuple but return the output value directly (again only if the method has 'void' as its return type). This is a backward incompatible change, but there are not many of such methods. - Another backward incompatible change is a minor cleanup of the names in the ``objc`` module. The most significant of these is the change from ``recycle_autorelease_pool`` to ``recycleAutoreleasePool``. The other changed names are internal to the bridge and should not be used in other code. - The interface of Foundation.NSFillRects changed, it now has an interface that is consistent with the rest of the bridge. Version 1.0b1 (2003-07-05) -------------------------- - More tutorials Two new tutorials were added: 'Adding Python code to an existing ObjC application' and 'Understanding existing PyObjC examples'. The former explains how you can use Python to add new functionality to an already existing Objective-C application, the latter explains how to understand PyObjC programs written by other people. - More examples Three examples were added: DotView, ClassBrowser and PythonBrowser, respectively showing the use of a custom NSView, NSBrowser and NSOutlineView. PythonBrowser is reusable, making it trivial to add an object browser to your application. - Support for MacOS X 10.1 It is now possible to build PyObjC on MacOS X 10.1, with full access to the Cocoa API's on that platform. Note: The port to MacOS X 10.1 is not as well supported as the 10.2 port. The developers do not have full-time access to a MacOS X 10.1 system. - Support for the WebKit framework, included with Safari 1.0. If you build PyObjC from source you will have to build on a system that has the WebKit SDK installed to make use of this. Note that the additional functionality will only be usuable on systems that have Safari 1.0 installed, however as long as you don't use the additional functionality it is safe to run a 'WebKit-enabled' PyObjC on systems without Safari 1.0. - It is no longer necessary to specify which protocols are implemented by a class, this information is automaticly deduced from the list of implemented methods. You'll still a runtime error if you implement some methods of a protocol and one of the unimplemented methods is required. - Support for "toll-free bridging" of Carbon.CF types to Objective-C objects. It is now possible to use instances of Carbon.CF types in places where Objective-C objects are expected. And to explicitly convert between the two. Note: this requires Python 2.3. - Better integration with MacPython 2.3: * ``NSMovie.initWithMovie_`` and ``NSMovie.QTMovie`` now use ``QT.Movie`` objects instead of generic pointer wrappers. * ``NSWindow.initWithWindowRef_`` and ``Window.windowRef`` now use ``Carbon.Window`` objects instead of generic pointer wrappers. * Methods returning CoreFoundation objects will return MacPython objects, and likewise, methods with CoreFoundation arguments will accept MacPython objects. - It is now possible to write plugin bundles, such as preference panes for use in System Preferences, in Python. See Examples/PrefPanes for an example of this feature. - The methods ``pyobjcPopPool`` and ``pyobjcPushPool`` of ``NSAutoreleasePool`` are deprecated. These were introduced when PyObjC did not yet support the usual method for creating autorelease pools and are no longer necessary. - Improved unittests, greatly increasing the confidence in the correctness of the bridge. - All suppport for non-FFI builds has been removed. - Object state is completely stored in the Objective-C object. This has no user-visible effects, but makes the implementation a lot easier to comprehend and maintain. - As part of the previous item we also fixed a bug that allowed addition of attributes to Objective-C objects. This was never the intention and had very odd semantics. Pure Objective-C objects not longer have a __dict__. - Weakrefs are no longer used in the implementation of the bridge. Because the weakrefs to proxy objects isn't very useful the entire feature has been removed: It is no longer possible to create weakrefs to Objective-C objects. NOTE: You could create weakrefs in previous versions, but those would expire as soon as the last reference from Python died, *not* when the Objective-C object died, therefore code that uses weakrefs to Objective-C objects is almost certainly incorrect. - Added support for custom conversion for pointer types. The end result is that we support more Cocoa APIs without special mappings. - The generator scripts are automaticly called when building PyObjC. This should make it easier to support multiple versions of MacOS X. Version 0.9 (May-02-2003) ------------------------- - This version includes numerous bugfixes and improvements. - The module AppKit.NibClassBuilder has been moved to the package PyObjCTools. - Usage of libFFI (http://sources.redhat.com/libffi) is now mandatory. The setup.py gives the impression that it isn't, but we do *not* support non-FFI builds. - We actually have some documentation, more will be added in future releases. - There are more Project Builder templates (see 'Project Templates'). - The InterfaceBuilder, PreferencePanes and ScreenSaver frameworks have been wrapped. - Management of reference counts is now completely automatic, it is no longer necessary to manually compensate for the higher reference count of objects returned by the alloc, copy and copyWithZone: class methods. - Various function and keyword arguments have been renamed for a better integration with Cocoa. A partial list is of the changed names is:: objc.lookup_class -> objc.lookUpClass objc.selector arguments/attributes: is_initializer -> isInitializer is_allocator -> isAlloc donates_ref -> doesDonateReference is_required -> isRequired class_method -> isClassMethod defining_class -> definingClass returns_self -> returnsSelf argument_types -> argumentTypes return_type -> returnType objc.get_class_list -> objc.getClassList - On Python 2.2, objc.YES and objc.NO are instances of a private boolean type, on Python 2.3 these are instances of the builtin type bool. - Because we now use libFFI a large amount of code could be disabled. The binaries are therefore much smaller, while we can now forward messages with arbitrary signatures (not limited to those we thought of while generating the static proxies that were used in 0.8) - Better support for APIs that use byte arrays are arguments or return values. Specifically, the developer can now manipulate bitmaps directly via the NSBitmapImageRep class, work with binary data through the NSData class, and very quickly draw points and rects via NSRectFillList() - We added a subclass of unicode that is used to proxy NSString values. This makes it easily possible to use NSString values with Python APIs, while at the same time allowing access to the full power of NSString. Version 0.8 (Dec-10-2002) ------------------------- - GNUStep support has been removed for lack of support. Volunteers needed. - Subclassing Objective-C classes from Python, including the addition of instance variables (like 'IBOutlet's) - Generic support for pass-by-reference arguments - More complete Cocoa package, including wrappers for a number of C functions, enumerated types, and globals. - More example code - Objective-C mappings and sequences can be accessed using the normal python methods for accessing mappings and sequences (e.g. subscripting works as expected) - Documentation: See the directory 'docs' - Can build standalone Cocoa applications based entirely on Python without requiring that user installs anything extra (requires 10.2). - Better packaging and wrapper construction tools (borrowed from MacPython). - An installer package. - Support for Project Builder based Cocoa-Python projects. - Unit tests. Version 2002-01-30 (January 30, 2002) ------------------------------------- - Version bumped to 0.6.1 ( __version__ is now a PyString ) - Will now build for Python 2.2 - added Cocoa package with Foundation.py and AppKit.py wrappers. - HelloWorld.py in Examples - builds with -g flag for debugging. -v option will dump log of message sends to /tmp file. - Fixed one major runtime bug: added ISCLASS test before isKindOfClass - without check, it crashes on sends to abstract classes like NSProxy. - There are still problems with Delegates and Notifications. Version 2001-03-17 (March 17, 2001) ----------------------------------- - moved to using distutils setup.py (requires small patch to distutils that has been submitted against python 2.1b1) Version 2000-11-14 (November 14, 2000) -------------------------------------- - GNU_RUNTIME is likely completely broken - Compiles on Mac OS X Server (python 2.0) - Compiles on Mac OS X (python 2.0) - Works as either a dynamically loadable module or statically built into a python executable - Requires a modified makesetup to work [patches have been sent to SourceForge.net's Python project]. - Supports NSAutoReleasepool. - Some pre-OSX stuff removed; references to old APIs, etc... (but nowhere near clean) Version 0.55, 18 August 1998 ---------------------------- - Here again, supporting GNU_RUNTIME and GNUstep Base! On my new Linux box I can finally test the module against them: I installed the latest snapshot of gstep-core, that contains the base library too. Given a sane GNUstep env (GNUSTEP_XXX env vars), you should be able to build a static ObjC-ized interpreter by:: o Adjusting Setup, commenting out NeXT definition and enabling GNU ones; o make -f Makefile.pre.in boot o make static Version 0.54, 24 March 1998 --------------------------- - OC_Pasteboard.[hm], OC_Stream.[mh] and ObjCStreams.m are definitively gone. - OC_PythonObject derives from NSProxy. Version 0.53, 4 January 1998 ---------------------------- - Tons of changes, retargeting the core functionality around the OpenSTEP API. This release basically matches the previous one in terms of functionalities, but is should be closer to GNUstep. - OC_Streams and OC_Pasteboard aren't supported, I've not yet decided if they are needed anymore. - Updated LittleButtonedWindow demo. Version 0.47, 29 October 1996 ----------------------------- - Misc/Makefile.pre.in automatically sets TARGET to ``pyobjc``. - ObjC.m splitted to ObjCObject.m ObjCMethod.m ObjCPointer.m ObjCRuntime.m. - New (almost invisible) types: ObjCSequenceObject and ObjCMappingObject; this to implement sequence and mapping syntax (several mapping methods have stub implementation). - OC_Pasteboard class is gone. Its functionalities are now in a category of Pasteboard/NSPasteboard. - Better methods doc. - PyArg_ParseTuple format strings contain arguments names. - OC_Streams are mapped to ObjCStreams by pythonify_c_value and its counterpart. Version 0.46, 18 October 1996 ----------------------------- - OC_Stream is now a subclass of NSData under Foundation. - New Objective-C class: OC_Pasteboard. Use it instead of Pasteboard/ NSPasteboard. - New Objective-C class: OC_PythonBundle. Use it instead of NXBundle/NSBundle. The ShellText demo has been upgraded to use it, and now you can run it directly from the WorkSpace. - OC_Python.[hm] aren't in the package anymore. - Setup.in directives changed again, due to OC_Python.m dropping. Version 0.45, 14 October 1996 ----------------------------- - Double syntax: to make it easier for us to test and choose the better candidate, the only one that will be present in the final 1.0 release. Keeping both would result in a speed penality. - Revisited streams, in particular GNUstep support. Version 0.44, 9 October 1996 ---------------------------- - Integers are now accepted too where floats or doubles are expected. - New method: ObjC.make_pointer (1) returns an ObjCPointer containing ``((void *) 1)``. Version 0.43, 7 October 1996 ---------------------------- - Completed ObjCStream implementation. There is now a new module, ObjCStreams which is automatically loaded by ObjC. You can access it as ObjC.streams. - Manual splitted in three parts: libPyObjC.tex with the chapter intro, libObjC.tex describing the main module, libObjCStreams.tex explains the stream facilities. Version 0.42, 4 October 1996 ---------------------------- - You can pass initialization arguments when using the ``Class()`` syntax. You select the right initializer selector with the ``init`` keyword parameter. - First cut on ObjCStream objects. Thanx to Bill Bumgarner for motivations. - New demo ShellText, to test above points. Version 0.41, 2 October 1996 ---------------------------- - Revised error messages: for arguments type mismatch they show the ObjC type expected. - When a method returns a pointer to something, it gets translated as an ObjCPointer object, not the pythonified pointed value. When a method expects a pointer argument, it accepts such an object as well. - New demo: Fred. To halt it, suspend the Python process with ^Z then kill it ;-). - Setup.in directives changed. See the new file Modules/Setup.PyObjC.in - Distribuited as a standalone package. Special thanks to Bill Bumgarner. Version 0.4, 27 September 1996 ------------------------------ - Now handles methods returning doubles or floats. - ObjCRuntime responds to .sel_is_mapped(). Version 0.31, 26 September 1996 ------------------------------- - It's now possible to use a different strategy to map ObjC method names to Python ones. Sooner or later we should decide the one to go, and drop the other. For details, see comments on PYTHONIFY_WITH_DOUBLE_UNDERSCORE in objc_support.h. - Manual section. - ObjC.runtime.__dict__ added. - ObjC.runtime.kind added. Version 0.3, 20 September 1996 ------------------------------ - No user visible changes, just a little effort towards GNU_RUNTIME support. Version 0.2, 16 September 1996 ------------------------------ - Accepts a struct.pack() string for pointer arguments, but... - ... New methods on ObjCMethod: .pack_argument and .unpack_argument: these should be used whenever an ObjC method expects a passed-by-reference argument; for example, on NeXTSTEP [View getFrame:] expects a pointer to an NXRect structure, that it will fill with the current frame of the view: in this case you should use something similar to:: framep = aView.getFrame__.pack_argument (0) aView.getFrame__ (framep) frame = aView.getFrame__.unpack_argument (0, framep) Version 0.1, 13 September 1996 ------------------------------ - Correctly handle pointer arguments. - New syntax to get a class: ObjC.runtime.NameOfClass - New syntax aliasing .new(): SomeClass() - New Demo: LittleButtonedWindow, that tests points above. - What follow is the recipe to get PyObjC dynamically loadable on NeXTSTEP: * apply the patch in Misc/INSTALL.PyObjC to Python/importdl.c * modify Python/Makefile adding the switch ``-ObjC`` to the importdl.o build rule:: importdl.o: importdl.c $(CC) -ObjC -c $(CFLAGS) -I$(DLINCLDIR) $(srcdir)/importdl.c * modify Modules/Setup moving the PyObjC entry suggested above AFTER ``*shared*``, and remove ``-u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s`` from it. * run ``make``: this will update various files, in particular Modules/Makefile. * modify Modules/Makefile adding ``-u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s`` to SYSLIBS:: SYSLIBS= $(LIBM) $(LIBC) -u libNeXT_s -lNeXT_s * run ``make`` again