Welcome to Nano!

Nano is a C++ framework for developing high-performance applications for Mac OS X.

Nano provides a complete set of classes for application development, allowing you to build full-featured, extensible, and maintainable applications for Mac OS X using the industry-standard C++ language.

By leveraging powerful tools such as Xcode and Interface Builder, Nano allows you to create new applications for, or port existing applications to, Mac OS X by building a state-of-the-art Aqua user interface in the same language as your core code.

At WWDC 2007, Apple decided to withdraw 64-bit Carbon support for external developers despite using it internally to support Cocoa.

This decision reduces the utility of a Carbon-based view/event framework, as it is unlikely there will be any further development of the Carbon framework.

The code for Nano will remain online, since it contains useful code relating to AppKit, Core Graphics, Core Foundation, cross-platform code such as one-line undo, and those pieces of Carbon which will be available in 64-bit form.

However, Nano 1.4 will be the last release of Nano in its current form.

Application Framework

Nano provides a rich application framework for event-driven behaviour as well as application, document, and window management.

This framework ensures your application automatically obtains standard behaviour that follows Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, and creates Universal Binaries that run natively on both Intel and PowerPC platforms.

Nano is highly modular, and can be adopted incrementally by existing applications. Most objects can be used independently of the application/document model, allowing you to adopt features such as regular expressions or Software Update within an existing code-base.

User Interface

Nano provides a C++ interface to every standard user-interface control, integrating them directly into Interface Builder.

This integration allows you to simply drag an object from an Interface Builder palette into your window, and use one line of code to connect that object to your document model.

When coupled with Interface Builder, Nano helps you create fully functional, object-oriented applications on Mac OS X in a fraction of the time you would need using procedural languages.

The Nano library and native Carbon framework take care of the details for you, allowing you to focus on your application-specific features.

Getting Started

The current release of Nano is available here. To get started with Nano, please see the Quick Start guide or some of the available features.

You may then want to read about HIViews, Carbon Events, or general application development.