Introduction to the Application Kit

The Application Kit should be your starting point if you want to write native Haiku applications with a GUI. The application kit does exactly as its name suggests; it is the basis for Haiku applications. You should read through this document and the documents referenced here before moving on to any other part of the API.

The Application Kit classes can be divided into two groups: the "messaging" classes and the "system interaction" classes. The larger group contains the messaging classes. Have a look at the Introduction to Messaging for more information. The following classes are messaging classes:

• BHandler
• BInvoker
• BLooper
• BMessage
• BMessageFilter
• BMessageQueue
• BMessageRunner
• BMessenger

The second group is the system interaction classes. These classes provide hooks for your application to interact with the rest of the system. The most important class is BApplication. This is a list of all the system interaction classes:

• BApplication
• BClipboard
• BCursor
• BLaunchRoster
• BPropertyInfo
• BRoster