About
Quartz Composer compositions can be made either according to protocol, via the Template dialog box, or they can be made without any protocol at all. See the Gallery for easily viewed examples or browse the Protocol sections of the site.

The protocols that can be applied are Visualizer, ScreenSaver, Transitions, Animation, Core Image Filter and RSS / Network.

All six protocols, except for Core Image Filter, can be easily intermixed. Indeed, Quartz Composer compositions need not have any specific protocol designated from the six available. You can make something that could be easily adapted or protocolised into being, say a screensaver and run it full screen, use it as a presentation or whatever, without giving it any protocols at all.

One cannot combine Image Filter protocol with any other type of protocol based composition although any other type of protocol based compositions can combine with any protocol other than Image Filter.

After all, a Graphic Animation might make for some pleasing screensaver, or it could equally be well employed as a precursor to a presentation.

Unless otherwise indicated, all of the examples explored herein are based upon Apple's installed defaults. There is some discussion upon the in built Developer plugin examples and also some exploration of 3rd party plugins.

This section , however, is totally about what can be done with what Apple gave us with Quartz Composer, without having to open up XCode. [Nothing against XCode, but the whole point of a visual programming paradigm would surely be to program compositions with as little coding as possible].

Much can be done by using GLSL, JavaScript, AppleScript and also by incorporating Quartz compositions into Cocoa applications; more often than not, what is being aimed for with Quartz Composer is to achieve truly remarkable graphic compositions and presentations. And to do so with little use of curly braces.

There is some exploration elsewhere within this site of incorporating Quartz Compositions within applications, programming within and programatically extending Quartz Composer .

For even more on programming within Quartz Composer see the JavaScript Guide or the Core Image Guide.