Metrowerks updates tools
Metrowerks Inc. this week shipped Developer Release 2 of CodeWarrior Latitude, its tool for porting Mac applications to Rhapsody. It also delivered an update to its CodeWarrior Professional cross-platform development environment.
Latitude DR2 is the first version of the software to run on the just-released Rhapsody OS. The previous version, which shipped at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in May, ran on Unix systems from Sun Microsystems Inc., Silicon Graphics Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
Latitude redirects Mac Toolbox calls to the target OS, with a Unix library containing a portable implementation of Mac APIs at its core. In the update, the company implemented hooks to Rhapsody's graphical user interface and Display PostScript rendering layers.
Metrowerks is continuing to polish the software and plans to offer Latitude revisions every couple of weeks through its Web site, said David Hempling, CodeWarrior technical lead. He said Metrowerks expects to make Latitude completely endian-neutral over the coming months; this will assist with development for the various platforms on which Rhapsody will run.
With the Latitude update, Metrowerks said, the Mac OS' Threads Manager is implemented on the Sun edition of the tool.
The Latitude software is based on Mac-to-Unix porting technology that Metrowerks acquired earlier this year from The Latitude Group Inc.; Quorum Software Systems Inc. originally developed the software.
The company said it plans to ship the first official release of Latitude just after the Premier Release of Rhapsody, which is due in early 1998. Latitude costs $399, which includes one product update and a year of technical support.
On the Mac development side, CodeWarrior Professional 2 includes a revised integrated development environment (IDE). The new IDE lets users compare source files; includes Version 2.0 of Metrowerks' C/C++ compiler; and features a Current Target column in the project window, which displays whether a file belongs to the current target. The new IDE also includes a code browser.
CodeWarrior Professional 2 is $449, with a renewal costing $299. The price includes one update and a year of technical support.
Metrowerks Inc. of Austin, Texas, can be reached at (512) 873-4700 or (800) 377-5416; fax (512) 873-4900; info@metrowerks.com; http://www.metrowerks.com.