Editing MacApp (section)

{{Short description|Object-oriented application framework for classic Mac OS.}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{Essay-like|date=March 2008}}
{{more citations needed|date=October 2021}}
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'''MacApp''' is the [[object oriented]] [[application framework]] for [[Apple Computer]]'s discontinued [[classic Mac OS]]. Released in 1985, it transitioned from [[Object Pascal]] to [[C++]] in 1991's version 3.0 release, which offered support for much of [[System 7]]'s new functionality. MacApp was used for a variety of major applications, including [[Adobe Photoshop]]<ref name=mt1997_12 /> and [[Freeway (software)|SoftPress Freeway]].{{citation needed|date=September 2021}} [[Microsoft]]'s [[Microsoft Foundation Classes|MFC]] and [[Borland]]'s [[Object Windows Library|OWL]] were both based directly on MacApp concepts.

Over a period of ten years, the product had periods where it had little development followed by spurts of activity. Through this period, [[NortonLifeLock|Symantec]]'s [[THINK C|Think Class Library]]/[[Think Pascal]] had become a serious competitor to MacApp, offering a simpler model in a much higher-performance [[integrated development environment]] (IDE).

Symantec was slow to respond to the move to the [[PowerPC]] platform in the early 1990s, and when [[Metrowerks]] first introduced their [[CodeWarrior]]/[[PowerPlant]] system in 1994, it rapidly displaced both MacApp and Think as the primary development platforms on the Mac. Even Apple used CodeWarrior as its primary development platform during the [[Copland (operating system)|Copland]] era in the mid-1990s.

MacApp had a brief reprieve between 2000 and 2001, as a system for transitioning to the [[Carbon (API)|Carbon]] system in [[macOS|MacOS X]].<ref name=mt2001_03>{{cite magazine
| url      = https://archive.org/details/eu_MacTech-2001-03_OCR/page/n59/mode/2up
| magazine = [[MacTech]]
| title    = Carbon: An Essential Element of MacOS X
| pages    = 58–61
| volume   = 17
| issue    = 3
| date     = March 2001
| first    = Mark
| last     = Turner
}}</ref> However, after demonstrating a version at [[Worldwide Developers Conference]] (WWDC) in June 2001, all development was cancelled that October.