We begin with the Mac-speci?¬?c APIs, presented roughly in order of modernity,
from most to least modern. This is by no means a sorting meant to imply
preference??”you should use whichever API best meets your application??™s
needs. However, many of the examples later in this book do express a preference
and are written in Objective-C/Cocoa. Quite frankly, it??™s the best UI toolkit
out there, and it??™s really fun to write applications using it.
Let??™s begin by reviewing the high-level concepts involved for all ?¬‚avors of
OpenGL APIs on the Mac.
45
API Introductions and Overview
The Mac has a rich history of 2D and 3D graphics, and the sheer number of
API choices for drawing bears this out. Despite the many choices available,
these APIs differ both in design and implementation, so it??™s not too dif?¬?cult
to determine which is right for you. This section discusses each API specifically
with the idea in mind that you??™ll be integrating it into an application.
That means the choices among these APIs largely revolve around how well they
will integrate with the rest of your application in general, and your windowing
system in particular. OpenGL is used consistently among these APIs, and the
standard OpenGL API is how you??™ll be rendering graphics data. But when
considering OpenGL setup, con?¬?guration, and window management, the various
APIs differ dramatically.
We??™ll begin by looking at each API and discussing the applicability of each, and
then dig into the details in later chapters.
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