Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!cadnetix.COM!cadnetix!pem From: pem@cadnetix.COM (Paul Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: System 7.0 & Aliases Keywords: aliases uses file IDs Message-ID: <9425@cadnetix.COM> Date: 6 Sep 89 18:38:15 GMT References: <1430@intercon.UUCP> <951@cbnewsk.ATT.COM> <4453@cps3xx.UUCP> <1436@intercon.UUCP> <4468@cps3xx.UUCP> Sender: news@cadnetix.COM Reply-To: pem@cadnetix.COM (Paul Meyer) Organization: Cadnetix Corp., Boulder, CO Lines: 56 In article <4468@cps3xx.UUCP> rang@frith.egr.msu.edu (Anton Rang) writes: >In article <1436@intercon.UUCP> amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) writes: >>around." How many people rearrange their disks a lot (beyond the first >>2 weeks right after purchase, anyway)? The closest thing I can think of >>that I do is occasionally rearrange my directory hierarchy now and then. > > I don't rearrange my disk a lot, but I do move individual files >around quite a bit based on usage. For instance[...] > > It depends on usage patterns, I guess. I could live with a method >that let the Finder keep track of things on the Desktop better, even. >I wouldn't mind putting things on the Desktop (though it might get >cluttered) if they would stay in their home folders (one of my pet >peeves about HFS vs. MFS)! Also, it's nice to keep some applications >together with their data files, but have the application somewhere >more easily accessible. > I would love to be able to have a folder which contained, say, >aliases for my 8 most-frequently-used applications, and another with >aliases for utility programs. I can do that right now, but their data >files don't stick around, and neither do documentation files (or help >files, configuration files, etc.). That's what I'd use aliases for: >so I don't have to open 4 levels of folders to get at an application, >even though that's where I want to put the application *and its files* >(if there aren't any other files there's no problem with the current >method). Anton has expressed the reasons why the FileID aliasing scheme answers a lot of my (user-level) prayers for UNIX-like links in the Mac file system. As many other people have seemed to indicate, though, there is also a need for an equivalent to BSD _symbolic_ links, which just store a relative or absolute path to the file. For example, I'm working on a project that can be described as several applications that use a common datafile format. I've hacked up a messy editor for the files and got it working, and now I'm working on various other parts of the system. I have separate Think C (Thinc?) projects for each application, referencing some common include files, with separate resource files and lots of separate source files for each one. Without symbolic aliases, I can take advantage of a nifty TC feature to put the common include files one place and put ifdefs controlling them in a subfolder for the project, but all the other source code and stuff has to coexist in the folder. If I bury something in a subfolder, again TC comes to my rescue and searches for it. Now, because TC is so nifty I am not pulling my teeth out over this problem, but if I used word processors as heavily as I do my development system I think I would be. (Of course, in MPW I could put the right stuff in the Makefile, but MPW is not exactly the bastion of a user interface for "the rest of us", and most non-development applications have no equivalent capacity.) It would be nice to have a system feature to make this work for any application. To end my ramblings, I guess the one place I would really need symbolic links is kind of made moot by the problem already being solved another way, but I have my own question: would a symbolic link structure be useful to any of the people who are bemoaning the "hard" link equivalent in System 7.0? Paul Meyer pem@cadnetix.COM Daisy/Cadnetix Inc. (DAZIX) {uunet,boulder}!cadnetix!pem 5775 Flatirons Pkwy. GEnie P.MEYER Boulder, CO 80301 (303)444-8075x277