Introduction to Programming With Navigation Services in Mac OS 9

Navigation Services is an application programming interface that allows your application to provide a user interface for navigating, opening, and saving Mac OS file objects. Navigation Services is provided as a Carbon-compliant replacement for and enhancement to the Standard File Package, which was introduced with the original Macintosh System. Prior to Navigation Services, file browsing in the Mac OS was often confusing to users in light of the differences between Standard File Package dialog boxes and the Finder’s file interface. Also, users must navigate much larger volumes than those which existed when the Standard File Package was developed. These large data spaces require extended functionality. Navigation Services is available in Mac OS 8.6 and later.

Who Should Read This Document?

This document is for application developers who want to use Navigation Services for such tasks as opening and saving files and choosing file objects. Those who plan to implement custom features in Navigation Services dialogs will also find this document useful.

Organization of This Document

This document contains the following chapters:

• Navigation Services Concepts, provides an overview of Navigation Services, describes the user interface in Mac OS 8 and 9, lists the keyboard equivalents supported by Navigation Services, and discusses the persistence of user settings, such as the default directory.

• Navigation Services Tasks, shows how to perform basic and advanced programming tasks and how to create application-defined functions to implement custom view filtering and previews.