Harvey, if you've ever had a good look at CoreImage transitions vs. "The Real Thing" (private Quartz APIs), you'd understand why it's necessary. Apple is doing a good thing with the Core* frameworks, but CoreImage is nowhere near as fast for those fancy effects as raw Quartz/OpenGL is.
Yes, it's hacky. Should people use it in their text editors or IM clients? In my opinion, hell no, but there are valid uses - look at the virtual desktop managers (*cough*VirtueDesktops*cough*). Still, there probably need to be disclaimers around using this code given how it tends to change with each major OS release.
by Tony Arnold — Oct 21
Yes, it's hacky. Should people use it in their text editors or IM clients? In my opinion, hell no, but there are valid uses - look at the virtual desktop managers (*cough*VirtueDesktops*cough*). Still, there probably need to be disclaimers around using this code given how it tends to change with each major OS release.