This weekend, I set up a second OS X 'experimental' partition on my hard drive. I'm using the new partition for mySQL and PHP work (for this site), as well as anything that I feel is too risky for my main OS X partition. One of those things is Apple's Developer Tools.
I've held off on this 70mb download for quite a while, as I have no real need for the development tools, and I was a bit short on drive space on my main OS X partition. Today I finally downloaded and installed the tools on the new experimental partition. It was definitely worth it, just to see some of the nicer demo apps they included. One of them, EnjoyEffectMovie was used to create the fire QuickTime movie from which the screenshot at right was taken. If you have some interest in the tools, and you have a fast connetion and some drive space, I'd recommend the download. Read the rest of this article for instructions on obtaining and installing the tools,and a brief description of some of the more interesting (to a non-programmer!) included programs.
DISCLAIMER: You can probably do Very Bad Things to your system with the developer tools! Any damage you cause is not my responsibility.
To download the developers' tools, you need to be a registered Apple developer. Many of the developer program levels cost money, but Apple has a free "online only" membership available to anyone. Go to this page and follow the online membership registration link. Complete the forms, log in, and you'll see a management window on the left of your screen. Click on the Download Software button, and then the Mac OS X button. You need to know if you have the three-language (early) or seven-language (later) version of the PB before you download, as the tools differ between the two.
Be warned that you'll need about 70mb of space for the download, and roughly 90mb for the install of the three-language version of the tools; it's a 100mb download for the seven-language version.
Once you have the file downloaded, do not use StuffIt Expander to expand it. Instead, use OpenUp, or do it from the UNIX command line (OpenUp is much easier!). The expanded file will be in your /Users/username/Library/OpenUp folder, called "developer.pkg." Move this onto the desktop, and double-click it. The installer will run, and create a new /Developer directory. I had to logout and login to see this directory in the GUI. That's all there is to the process of installing the tools. Inside of /Developer/Applications, I found the following interesting programs:
- EnjoyEffectMovie - This simple app builds a couple of QuickTime effects movies, such as the one you see here.
- icns Browser and IconComposer - View and build OS X icons.
- Pixie - A very neat little app that magnifies anything under the cursor, lets you freeze it, and capture the color under the cursor.
If you have some time and drive space and want to see a bit more behind the scenes of OS X, take a look at the developers' tools. If, however, you just want to use the OS on a daily basis, you won't ever have to go near these progams!
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