Apple Inc.

Pixar

Mike Ferris

Anders Bertelrud

John Graziano

Christian Molick

Oren M Jacob

Robert Jensen

Eric Gregory

Building a software product in an integrated development environment using build styles. Applying a plurality of build styles, each of the build styles comprising a dictionary of build settings, to a target, determining an order of precedence for the build styles and other dictionaries containing build settings, and building a software product using said target and said build styles.

Method and apparatus for application building using build styles

A method of building several software products using build styles. The method receives target settings including definitions for several build settings for directing build applications to build the several software products. The method receives build styles to build each particular software product. Each build style includes definitions for build settings for directing the build applications to build the particular software product. At least a first received build style inherits from a second build style. The method searches the build styles to identify a definition for a particular build setting by automatically retrieving the second build style to search for a definition for the particular build setting based on an inheritance relationship between the first and second build styles. The method generates final build settings for the particular software product by applying the definition of the particular build setting to the target settings without changing the target settings.

A unified mechanism of scene description includes layering and cross-referencing relationships. The scene description specifies components using one or more layers. A layer includes an opinion of value for one or more attributes of one or more components. A layer can be sparsely populated with opinions of attribute values for only portions of components' attributes. Layers express opinions of value for an attribute using the semantic structure associated with the attribute. The scene description organizes layers in a layer hierarchy, which determines a layer stacking order. The layer stacking order specifies the compositing of opinions of attribute values to determine the complete authored state of the component. The layer stacking order enables attributes of components to be selectively overridden without disturbing other attribute values. Cross-referencing relationships enable encapsulation and reuse of components. Cross-referencing relationships can encapsulate components defined by one or more layers.

Layering and referencing of scene description

What is disclosed is a method of building a software product in an integrated development environment using several build styles and a target. The method includes (1) determining an order of precedence for the build styles, where each of the build styles comprises a dictionary of build settings; and (2) building a software product by applying at least one of several build styles to the target based upon the order of precedence. In various embodiments of the invention, the build settings within the build styles are capable of referring to other build settings and concatenating new values with previously defined values.

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Oakland, CA, United States of America

Mike Ferris