Apple Newton Programmer’s Newton 2.0 (for Newton 2.0) - Manual (Page 676)

C H A P T E R 1 9
Built-in Applications and System Data
19-2 Names
IMPORTANT
Soup formats are subject to change. Applications that rely on soup
formats risk incompatibility with future versions of Newton
software. To avoid future compatibility problems with soup
format changes, you should use the methods provided by the
built-in applications (if any exist) or the global functions
GetSysEntryData and SetSysEntryData to get or change
entries in any of the built-in soups. They allow you to get and set
the values of slots in a soup entry.
▲
Familiarity with Chapter 1, “Overview,” Chapter 5, “Stationery,” and Chapter 11,
“Data Storage and Retrieval,” of this manual is particularly valuable in reading
this chapter.
Note
Future Newton devices may not include all the built-in
applications described in this chapter.
◆
Names 19
This section describes the application program interface (API) to the Names
application. The Names application manages a database of people and places. It
presents information either as a business card, or as a list of all the available
information. These two views are shown in Figure 19-1.
About the Names Application 19
The Names application is built with the NewtApp framework using data definitions
(commonly called “dataDefs”) and view definitions (commonly called “viewDefs”).
This architecture allows extensibility—the addition of new data views, card types,
and card layout styles—without altering the Names application itself. For more
information on dataDefs and viewDefs, see Chapter 4, “NewtApp Applications,”
and Chapter 5, “Stationery.”
The Names application interface allows you to programmatically add complete cards
and add information to an existing card. In addition, several Names methods let
you access information in a Names soup entry.
The Names application can be extended by adding auxiliary buttons, as described
in “Auxiliary Buttons” beginning on page 19-36.
The application is called Names, because that is what the user sees, but in program-
ming the term “cardfile” is used interchangeably and appears in the code.