Preference Pane
Encyclopedia
A Preference Pane is a special dynamically loaded
plugin in Mac OS X
. Introduced in Mac OS X v10.0
, the purpose of a Preference Pane is to allow the user to set preferences for a specific application or the system by means of a graphical user interface
. Preference Panes are the OS X replacement to control panel
s. Prior to Mac OS X v10.4
, collections of Preference Panes featured a "Show All" button to show all the panes in the collection and a customizable toolbar to which frequently-used preference panes could be dragged. In Mac OS X v10.3
, the currently-active pane would also be highlighted in the toolbar when it was selected. With Mac OS X v10.4
, this functionality was dropped in favor of a plain Show All button and back/forward history arrows.
System Preferences is an application whose sole purpose is the loading of various preference panes, for system configuration. Any application can be written to use prefpanes.
Preference panes carry the .prefpane file extension.
Dynamic loading
Dynamic loading is a mechanism by which a computer program can, at run time, load a library into memory, retrieve the addresses of functions and variables contained in the library, execute those functions or access those variables, and unload the library from memory...
plugin in Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. Introduced in Mac OS X v10.0
Mac OS X v10.0
Mac OS X version 10.0, code named "Cheetah", is the first major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. Mac OS X v10.0 was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129...
, the purpose of a Preference Pane is to allow the user to set preferences for a specific application or the system by means of a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
. Preference Panes are the OS X replacement to control panel
Control panel (Mac OS)
Under Mac OS 9 and earlier, a control panel is a small application which enabled the user to modify software and hardware settings such as the sound volume and desktop pattern. Control panels differ from extensions in that they allow the user to specify options, whereas extensions provide the user...
s. Prior to Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...
, collections of Preference Panes featured a "Show All" button to show all the panes in the collection and a customizable toolbar to which frequently-used preference panes could be dragged. In Mac OS X v10.3
Mac OS X v10.3
Mac OS X Panther is the fourth major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" and preceded Mac OS X Tiger...
, the currently-active pane would also be highlighted in the toolbar when it was selected. With Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...
, this functionality was dropped in favor of a plain Show All button and back/forward history arrows.
System Preferences is an application whose sole purpose is the loading of various preference panes, for system configuration. Any application can be written to use prefpanes.
Preference panes carry the .prefpane file extension.