The task I have been dealing with for the last day or so is how to allow the user to set–or not–a background image, then add images, if they like reset the background image and NOT have that NEW background image cover the previous images. Almost have it licked. So far, my thinking has been to accompany any images loaded, after the initial background image is loaded, with an off-screen loading of those images. So, when setting a new background image, I wipe the window, load a new background image, then redraw the window–atop the new background image–from the off-screen window using Quartz Layers.

I’ve also been looking into CoreData lately since it might be a nice way to manage the various images being loaded/unloaded. I’ve never worked with CoreData, but those who have say it is liberating…once you get past the learning hump, which is a bit high since the only textbook on it is Apple’s documentation. Like the docs for Cocoa Bindings, which CoreData meshes with very closely, the docs for CoreData trend towards the theory and not the practice of using this stuff.

I may switch everything over to Leopard since there’s a rumor that the NSImage and like Cocoa classes have been bolstered under 10.5. Will have to wait and see.