The Be operating system is a great platform just waiting for applications. Elegant, object-oriented to the core, and primed for great graphical interfaces, Be meets the needs of computer users at the turn of the century -- but they call for equally elegant applications for displaying and manipulating content. This book gives C++ programmers their start to developing those applications. Be will prove to be a pleasure for developers who have struggled with APIs on Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh, or the X Window System. It provides consistent and intuitive methods for creating interfaces and handling messages. But you"ll still have a hard time if all you have to learn from is official reference documentation like the Be Developer"s Guide (also published by O"Reilly & Associates). This book is a traditional guide to application development that starts with the most basic concepts and leaves you with a firm foundation for further research. The book begins with typical "Hello, world" programs and gradually adds elements of the graphical interface. It carefully describes drawing and message handling. While the focus is on the graphical interface, basic OS features like threads and file handling are also introduced. Be runs on both PowerPC and Intel platforms, offering the same API on both. The programs in this book will therefore compile and run on any platform. Be"s own integrated development environment, BeIDE (originally Metrowerks CodeWarrior), is used to develop all examples.