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Fun with CoreGraphics, Part II

Split personality framework

Cross-application notifications

Different applications can register for the same notifications (e.g., loginwindow and Activity Monitor are both interested in when new processes start running or existing processes die), and you can even register for the same notification more than once from different classes within the same program. In this specific case, though, you really would have to make use of the userData parameter to determine which object is interested in the notification - if you see what I mean.

To unregister a notification procedure (typically you’d do this in your object’s dealloc method), use the CGSRemoveNotifyProc call. This routine has the exact same function prototype as CGSRegisterNotifyProc - just pass the same three parameters.

The notification procedure type looks like this:

typedef void (* CGSNotifyProcPtr)(CGSNotificationType type, void * data, NSUInteger dataLength, void *userData);

In other words, the first parameter is the notification type, corresponding to the second parameter to CGSRegisterNotifyProc. The last parameter, userData, will be whatever you passed as the third parameter to CGSRegisterNotifyProc.

You’ll probably want to use the same notification procedure for several different notifications, in which case you can check the first parameter to see what notification you’re dealing with. Obviously, if you’ve only registered one notification for each notification procedure, the check is superfluous.

The "meat" of the notification is in the data and dataLength parameters. The significance of these parameters varies depending upon the notification type that’s being received. More on that next time. The bad news is that I’ve said so much, I’m out of space. There’s no sample project this time, but next month I’ll provide source for an app which receives CoreGraphics notifications, and I’ll delineate some of the notification types available. I’ll also wrap up this mini-series on CoreGraphics by pointing you to some of the other goodies contained therein. ®

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