As of today the latest version of Xcode (4.3) is available on the mac app store as an app - not as an installer as previously. So far as I can tell that means that Xcode will get updated alone. So what happens to the rest of the dev tools - QC included?
Have you downloaded it as yet?
Well, it seems you can choose QC as extra install, as said on New Features (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/DeveloperTools/Co...), and I think it is part of this package: Developer Downloads: Graphic Tools. Now downloading. Will it get faster? At least, it seems it will be smaller, we don't need the installer on the disk, etc.
Yeah, good news indeed, thanks for the update leon. I'm still to update Xcode on Lion to 4.3
I am sure that reassures any who might have been believing any ugly rumours [not from you psonice BTW, SFAIK] to the effect that these Optional Tools were no longer available.
I guess the same will be true for Mountain Lion too :-).
Will update upon that when I find out.
I'd left it installing earlier. Once it's first run, it asks if you want to remove old versions. That deletes the entire /Developer folder!
Well, I had a look.. and there's a new "Downloads" tab in Xcode's preferences. That offers things like command line tools and iOS simulators, but no graphics tools or QC. There's also a new section in the main Xcode menu, "Open developer tool" with links to the other 'missing' tools like Instruments (I'd be lost without that one!). No QC still, but there's a link for more tools which leads to the same place Leon linked to I think - and yes, QC is in the graphics tools package. Phew!
Yes QC is still available. Making it a separate install may indicate its possible to get updates to the editor on a more frequent basis, since there is now a layer of separation. One hopes.
Yeah guys, note that all of the other apps that go w/ Xcode traditionally are now additional downloads as Graphics Tools for Xcode, Hardware IO Tools for Xcode, Audio Tools for Xcode, etc. Kinda interesting that they have this Command Line Tools now (like, Xcode being so screwy that they're shoring up compiling by command line now?). Not sure about the delineation between what's able to be downloaded via that tab or not.
There's ALWAYS been command line tools - so I guess the opposite applies and it's now so stable they're depreciating them ;)
Hopefully there will be more updates, but maybe not - the graphics tools package is a separate download, it's not part of Xcode and it's not an app store distribution. There's no automatic updating so far as I can see, and they'd have to update the whole graphics package to update just QC.
I take this more as a signal that things are getting disconcertingly out of whack internally, to the point where maintaining all of the tools properly is becoming impossible. This is a good way of making it so that they are still available. It's also a good because Xcode will probably require a bunch of updates to get current issues resolved, and there isn't a reason to have to replace all of the other stuff that no one ever touches/improves, every time there's a bug fix for Xcode.
Was it ever all separated up though? (I know one has always been able to build via commandline.)
http://kennethreitz.com/xcode-gcc-and-homebrew.html
It's good that one doesn't have to delete the old Developer folder if you don't want to.
Tell you something for nothing though, Movie Importer patch is still not working on my iMac in QC 4.6.
I left the old versions in place just for completeness and software testing sake.
Having the tools as separate applications does seem to point towards each application being updatable in a more discrete fashion.
The download page for the separate DMGs is https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=for%20Xcode%20-
Some very revealing comments in the The Future section of that page you gave the URL to.
Yep, interesting section.. By the way, I had some problems downloading the additional tools, after clicking and agreeing I got no download but just an empty page, same in safari, firefox and icab. Just after switching to another user the downloading worked, strange.... Well, let's see, the change is certainly interesting ;)
Whew, glad I saw this! Question: does Quartz Composer have release notes?
Same PDF as 10.6 release. Heartwarming.
So all the awesome QC dev examples are discontinued?
And how about Quartz Composer Visualizer? Looks cool. Multi-screen viewing? Dedicated processing? Network host/client? Is this app new to only me?
No, it wasn't separate before. If you can install the command line packages without Xcode then I guess it's a benefit to some people. Quite why you'd want to is a bit beyond me though, unless you're porting stuff from other platforms - I'd be totally lost without the profiling tools!
Another possible issue: When I download the graphics tools, I have to log in with my dev account, and it mentions "pre-release software" at the side. If they're under the pre-release section I think you need a paid account to access the downloads. Anyone without a paid dev account tried to access them?
A] Quartz Composer Visualizer - not a new application, it has been in distribution since Leopard sprang upon the scene. It is , I guess, new to you
B] Dev examples discontinued? - time alone will tell, they were installed with Leopard and aren't available as a separate download for QC 4.6. My best advice is back them up and then they'll be available to you for the foreseeable future. It seems to me that it will only be Composition Repository items that will be available for perusal post OS and Graphics Tools install. The link given in the QC Template Chooser now goes to https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/navigation/index.html, which , upon searching contains only 42 examples, most of which are Xcode projects. That said, the next version for OS X , Mountain Lion, is still in beta and might result in a return of possibly new Developer examples, however, I rather doubt that at present. Back up the current archive you have of these Developer examples. The Developer examples were moved, with the roll out of Snow Leopard, into /Developer/Library/Quartz Composer/Examples. They date from 2007 and are all but officially deprecated, even though they still work. Indeed , they work faster now, under the 64 bit Lion OS , no doubt thanks in no small part to the ongoing improvements that Apple has made to the supporting frameworks upon which Quartz Composer depends.
I think you'll find that a none Dev registered Apple ID holder might have to pay for Xcode though. I await being disabused of this possible misapprehension on my part.
Correction -
Actually on closer examination, it would seem as though Apple did a bit of a volte face on first charging for Xcode then later in the same year, 2011, they made Xcode available free of charge, again, but as an application installer download from the App Store.
The free version is the one that is currently downloadable from the App Store and , that brings us to the aforementioned stumbling block regarding the additional tools. Perhaps that is merely a temporary state of affairs.
When all of the app kit examples, qc plugin examples, etc., were dropped from the developer folder between 10.5~10.6, they wound up back on the dl site (where they still are). All of the plugin and app examples have been available on the developer site as well (I haven't checked in the last couple of days).
Maybe that stuff is all but deprecated, but I don't think so... I'd mildly argue that point. Something isn't deprecated until it's deprecated, and as you say "even though they still work", which seems even more like they are not even close to deprecated. Also, the examples were moved between SL and Leopard, but are also different in some cases, and there are none of the app or plugin projects.
I want to be clear that my comment on that was in reference to the fact that things just seem to be getting buggier and slower, in general, and new implementations often have problems that seem sometimes non-fixable, because they're based on bad ideas and just cannot work. It's not really appropriate to make some kind of list here though :-)
I still think that all of this stuff being separated up and pushed to the ADC website says more about Apple feeling like some kind of level of development can be done without all of the niceties, and that it should be streamlined for those who might only need Xcode. However, I think it also reveals how there is less of a vibe of a bunch of teams revising stuff so that it can meet the drop date for a new Xcode. It seems more like that stuff will tend to stay static, while Xcode will have to have more updates to get stuff like sandboxing, iCloud, some compilation issues, some GUI issues, among other things, working adequately. I think a bunch of people still use Xcode 3.2.x in Lion, and I bet will still try to in Mountain Lion.
Maybe I should be hopeful and think that this means we could be getting updates on the other tools more often, but it seems unlikely to me... I hope I'm proven wrong!
Well if you mean the Download site at https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/navigation/#section=Resource%20T... then I can't find those Developer examples from searching within the Developer library at all. Take on board your comments regarding deprecation not being wholly applicable to compositions that still do work.
Also take on board your comments regarding the move from Leopard to Snow and the differences, in some cases, between the two sets of examples.
Didn't mean to be misunderstood as stating that the compositional examples were including the code projects which, by the way, are by far the greater number of sample code items available within the Developer library when I enter the search term Quartz Composer.
Do you have a download link for those Examples. I've searched again, still cannot find them. What I can find are 42 examples in the Developer Sample Code library and 55 items, some are reference documents in the Quartz Core section and the 55 examples include the 42 Sample Code items that have Conceptual, OpenCL and Quartz Composer Sample Patches. I'm pretty sure that those Developer examples are only available within the OS X DVD, but I await correction.
I hope you and I are proven wrong in our inclination towards pessimism regarding other Developer tools being updated.
Oh, and I'm by no means saying you're incorrect about the dl's not being there, only that I'm sure they've been there in recent months/weeks.
Also, I'm definitely referring to the plugin projects, app projects, and various dls that have a bunch of qtz's jammed together in folders (like the core image dl, the openCL dl, the graphic animations/wwdc dl, etc.). I'm not sure about all of those example qtz's that have been stuffed into the SL folder... it seems as though I've seen some on the dl site, but I don't know for certain. I'm sure if you aren't finding them, you're right.
I do know that yesterday I was having some "issues" with the apple website... for example, clicking on some stuff in the adc library, was actually leading me to a page where that was entirely blank except for one button, for dl'ing the iMessages beta (not the correct iMessages beta page, I might add, but some weird glitch).
LOL - I feel I have to either laugh or cry, it is just so funny. Like go to the Developer forums and guess what even on the logon that I have that has no iOS, I still end up in iOS land when what I want is the Mac Dev forums. Still some broadly pertinent stuff but ... none the less. I'm getting to believe that I was closer to the truth with what I concede may well have been a somewhat hasty rough and ready summation, that I shall update and adumbrate here and now - [almost] "all but deprecated"•~ If you find the URL that matches your prior contention, please, please do tell. I'll gladly eat humble pie. liver and onions and all over it.
Oh, what exactly was my prior contention? I think I miscommunicated or was confused about what in specific you were talking about. I was referring to dl's like the ones I was talking about being available (like, the 10.5ish era stuff, and additional dl's), not necessarily exactly what is in the 10.6 dev folder.
Yeah, the ADC/Apple site is particularly bad about "redirects"... I think maybe because of the fact that so much of it is "touch a button on page" then a different mode happens, or something spawns. The site doesn't seem to keep track of those "modes". So, when you hit "Mountain Lion", then go look at something, then go back, you wind up back at "Lion" stuff instead of where you really were. It similar when browsing around the forum or navigating through downloads. You can also manage to get prompted endlessly for your id/password by doing certain maneuvers, but then take "other routes" and not have to enter them again. (This kinda harkens back to my statement about a feeling that things are really whacky internally... I mean, it's a bit of a bummer that Apple can't get simple stuff right. It's this feeling that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.)
It certainly is sad that Apple seems to be getting sloppy on how they present their currently supported products. I don't think that bodes well at all to be honest.
BTW, I was meaning your contention to the effect that the QC Developer examples that used to be bundled as part of the Optional Installs on the OS X DVD were still available on Apple's Developer site. ["they wound up back on the dl site (where they still are)"].
I don't think they are actually available any longer upon that site. That's why I advised psonice [or anyone else] to back 'em up :-) [if they hadn't done so already].
I'm still not 100% sure if we're talking about the same dev examples. If we're talking about "you can dl them preserved exactly the way they are in SL", then yeah, agreed that they are not present that way. I don't see the "qtz" single composition type examples present in that way.
If we're talking about the glut of stuff from Leopard, along w/ some of the dl's that have been traditionally available, they seem to still be there. I think the search engine is kind of crappy though, and requires pumping in some different terms to get what you want.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/search/index.php?Search=qc
Typing in QC reveals a bunch of the plugin projects.
Typing in "composer" reveals a bunch of the app projects (all?), and some stuff like the "droste" example folder, the quartz composer "sample patches" folder, etc.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/search/index.php?Search=composer
Typing in "composition" turns up stuff like the Quartz Composer Conceptual Compositions dl I talk about all the time ( https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/Conceptual/Introduct... ) ... and that has been part of the Dev folder before, QuartzComposer OpenCL, CIChromaKey, etc.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/search/index.php?Search=composition
Typing in "quartzcomposer" with no spaces yields some different results. Again, not suggesting that there is some download for all of the stuff that is currently QC related, in aggregate, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if stuff that's in the dev folder is not on the dl site.
Did I already mention that the ADC search engine sucks? Maybe they could license some Google tech? (sorry, too easy to rib them on that)
So, I think it's more a matter of disorganization... this isn't just a "QC problem", it's a problem that impacts other tech as well. I regularly dig into my 10.5 partition to look at AppKit examples, for instance (that particular omission after 10.5 seems even more glaring than many other things, to me).
I think the main feeling I get, is that people CAN make apps and submit to the appstore(s) without Apple having to maintain any of that well, so I don't think they're bending over backwards to do so. I don't think stuff like Instruments, Shader Builder, etc., really has to be changed/improved/maintained much at this point, or if it does, that much thought or time is going into doing so, because it's doesn't have much impact on someone being able to make the kind of apps that Apple is fostering right now. I think Apple is doing "just enough"->"not enough", instead of knocking stuff out of the ballpark like they used to, basically.
A bit OT, but among other changes, I also take a considerable amount of offense at the Gatekeeper, and the premise. I think that the end result is to give Apple a lock on apps and take a percentage off the top of all devs. My issue with it is the suggestion of safety. I've made many apps, none of which abuse user info.
Meanwhile, one can do a Google search, and see a variety of instances where approved apps have misused contact info, or done other things to misuse location data, WITH being approved and run through Apple's process.
I also feel that they're giving hackers a mechanism to abuse dev id's, making dev id's targets, and possibly giving a way to actually sign malicious apps so that they won't even say they were dl'ed from the internet. I'm really curious how they're going to make that not be the result. I'm also curious how they will handle some kind of large third party suing them for implication that their apps are unsafe, if that vendor chooses not to go through the Apple dev/AppStore channels. No one should have to be compelled to dance to that tune, so to speak, to have their code run without an implicit kind of "besmirching" of it by Apple.
The search facility on Apple's site is a real magical mystery tour and no mistake.
The observations regarding 3rd party vendors and the sloppy or even intentional abuse of private information is especially timely. The news today is full of Apple's iOS needing an update to deal with the unintended redistribution of contact book data of iPhone owners. How disappointing.
No. How totally annoying and embarrassing. I think there seems, as you say, too much of a tendency for Apple to do '"just enough"->"not enough" '.
They really are setting themselves up for some costly challenges at this rate.
I think it will take awhile for:
-Pro's to abandon Apple.
-For a reasonable alternative to present itself that pro's can use.
-For people to catch up to the fact that increasingly less Pro's or "trend leaders" (like musicians, artists, etc.) are using Apple's, or have a ton of caveats surrounding their use.
-For the non-pro populace to then stop buying the "lesser" products that sell in greater amounts - the iStuff, bc of the mystique fading (eg., their "heroes" are no longer buying the Apple stuff, no figurehead w/ good taste and foresight like Jobs, etc.)
The reason Apple has the "cool factor" is because, for decades, when you see "behind the scenes" of movie productions, music productions, etc., people have been using Apple computers. That, and some really sleek design, and a generally good product.
The product is getting not so solid, the pro segment of the user base is generally being ignored, the developers are getting basically ignored and/or treated like employees at a crappy company, and a lot of people in the pro market are turning to non-Apple alternatives. It just takes something that isn't even quite as good as OS X, but w/ the key abilities to do what is needed on a professional level, to make people start converting. When it feels like the underpinnings of something are crappy, and there's not that "but w/ OS X you get all that added value in software!" feel, there's no point in paying for overpriced hardware anymore. The system has to NOT suck to make it worth buying the overpriced, oftentimes outdated hardware.
I'm really excited about the Windows 8 preview, and about stuff like Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) , and the Spark Linux tablet. Way more so than "Mountain Lion".
Raspberry PI - lovin' that especially, Windows 8 - worth ponying up for a build your own PC [when I can afford one[after I get back into work]] :-)] Spark Linux tablet - I'll have to look into that one.
Variety is the Spice of Life.
Will the iDevice phenomena continue to sway Apple away from their previous core revenue stream?
Probably.
[Go Linux Go?]
Do you guys seriously think that Apple really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
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Xcode eats babies.
•~
Wait, this may be more appropriate than "Xcode eats babies.":
Cool story, bro.