QuickTime Kit Programming Guide - filibeto.org

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Introduction to QuickTime Kit
Programming Guide
The QuickTime Kit is a new framework (QTKit.framework) developed by Apple for working with
QuickTime movies in Cocoa applications on Mac OS X. The QuickTime Kit framework, which offers
a rich API for manipulating time-based media, is designed as an alternative to and eventual replacement
for the existing Cocoa Application Kit classes NSMovie and NSMovieView. Using this new API
provides developers with more extensive coverage of QuickTime functions and data types than is
offered by those Application Kit classes and achieves this in a way that minimizes the requirement
for Cocoa programmers to be conversant with Carbon data types such as handles, aliases, file-system
specifications, and the like.
The QuickTime Kit also comes with a new QuickTime palette, which lets you drag a QuickTime movie
object into your project window, and display, control, and edit that movie without writing a single
line of code.
To work with this new framework, you don’t need to know anything about the existing NSMovie
and NSMovieView classes, but you should be familiar with developing Cocoa applications using
Xcode and Interface Builder. Because the framework is flexible and relatively easy to use in Cocoa,
you won’t need to have a comprehensive understanding of the QuickTime C API in order to build
your application or extend its functionality.
The QuickTime Kit framework is available in Mac OS X v10.4 and later. The framework also supports
applications running in Mac OS X v10.3, but requires QuickTime 7 or later.
Who Should Read This Document
If you are a Cocoa developer who wants to integrate QuickTime movies in your application, you
should read the material presented in this document. The various QuickTime and Cocoa mailing lists
provide a useful developer forum for raising issues and answering questions that are posted.
If you are new to Cocoa or QuickTime, you should read these webpages, which are intended to get
you up to speed with both Apple technologies: Getting Started with Cocoa and Getting Started with
QuickTime.
Who Should Read This Document 9
2005-11-09 | © 2004, 2005 Apple Computer, Inc. All Rights Reserved.