Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!endor!siegel
From: siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: What to Remember, and When?
Message-ID: <2184@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 8 Jul 89 03:31:02 GMT
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
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Organization: Symantec/THINK Technologies, Bedford, MA
Lines: 36


	I have been considering the issue of remembering state information
about documents - in particular, text-only files that are edited by a text
editor. I'd like to remember the state of a document, such as font, size,
and tab settings; window position and size; scrollbar positions; selection
range, and option settings.

	I could remember this state information as a resource in the document
itself - this is an approach that MPW takes. The problem is that it's not
conceptually "clean" to write information to a document without warning.
Also, some people object to having resources in their text-only documents
for reasons of their own - I don't care either way in particular.

	Another approach is to not remember the document state, but to 
instead remember the application state - which documents were open, and their
states. This info could be written into a "Resume Foobar" document, in the
same fashion that Excel and More II do. My objection to that is that the
resume document is never where I want it to be; I rarely open the application
folder, the system folder is an undesirable place to put such a document,
and that leaves the desktop.

	Does anyone have any recommendations? I realize that this will probably
come down to a matter of personal preference, but opinions are welcome.

		-Rich
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Rich Siegel
 Staff Software Developer
 Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
 Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
 UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel

 I classify myself as a real developer because my desk is hip-deep in
 assembly-language listings and I spend more than 50% of my time in TMON.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~