Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Communications Toolbox questions Message-ID: <9145@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 1 Dec 89 05:28:04 GMT References: <9125@hoptoad.uucp> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco Lines: 136 Byron Han answered my questions (quite well, for the most part) and gave me permission to post his answers to the net. I thought I would do so for anyone else interested in the Toolbox issues I raised. I've trimmed his quotations of my questions. Date: 30 Nov 89 13:17:27 From: Byron Han Subject: RE>Communications Toolbox To: tim@toad.com >(1) Is there a way to configure tools "off-line", that is, without an >underlying connection? The idea would be to save the configuration >string in a session document, but not to start a connection. %%%%% Yes. The connection does not have to be open and you can use CMSetConfig/GetConfig or the CMChoose routine. You can also create multiple connection records that use the same tool but each have different configurations (although they may contend for the same hardware) and can have multiple sessions going. For example, if I have a 4- port serial card I could have 6 connection records each using the serial connection tool each of which is an active session going through a different port. %%%%% >(2) Are you going to make the installation process less painful for >users who have 6.0.x? This is pretty important for marketing reasons. %%%%% There are architectural issues as to why we are installed directly into the system file. This is because of the resource file management that we do and being in the system file makes life 2000% better under MultiFinder (far fewer games that we must play) CommToolbox 1.0 ships with Installer 3.0 which is much nicer than Installer 2.6.1 %%%%% >(3) (No need to answer) Are you aware that the status dialog boxes >for the Modem tool are way ugly? They need some graphics, better >placement, and less need for the user to keep clicking OK. %%%%% They will be fixed %%%%% >(4) How does one sense a connection drop (carrier loss) on a Modem >connection? %%%%% I am working on this one %%%%% >(5) The "sub-protocols" of file transfer are handled weakly. The user >should select a mode (such as text, MacBinary, or data) every time she >transfers a file, sending or receiving. It is certainly not true that >you will always use the same mode or sub-protocol on every file >transfer for a particular session document. But the only way to do >this seems to be to follow Standard File with a complete file transfer >configuration dialog. I would prefer to put the mode control/pop-up >in the Standard File box itself. Is there any way to do this? %%%%% Nope. I tend to use the same method every time. If you have an application with a scripting language you could configure your session document to do this thoughI %%%%% >Thanks for any help you can give.... %%%%% Sorry I took so long - my mail gets gatewayed to QuickMail and it backs up sometimes. If you like, you can post my response to the net. %%%%% End of quoted message from Byron Han. While I'm here, I might as well post my response to that message. Is anyone else interested in these issues, or should I save the bandwidth? Anyway, here's my response to Byron: Thanks very much. I didn't realize that the Comm. Mgr. would let me create a connection even if it had no spare resources. As for the installation issues, the problem has more to do with floppy disk space than the messiness of Installer. There's not enough room for both the system file w/Toolbox and the tools, so the user has to create the new folder by hand and drag the tools into it. This goes against every principle of Mac interface design I can think of.... About the status dialogs -- what I'd like to see is a callback mechanism to the application, so it could handle status changes in a way appropriate to its interface. The default would be not to use any callback, just to use the status dialogs in the system as it stands now. For instance, I prefer to show status changes with an MPW-like rectangle in the lower left corner of the window, to the left of the horizontal scroll bar. Someone who doesn't care could just use the defaults. Finally, on the "file transfer sub-protocol" issue, I *don't* use the same mode every time. It occurs to me that maybe what you're doing is transferring your own files between home and work, or something similar. Consider the issues with bulletin boards, where it's very common to have both plain ASCII text files and application/stackware/etc. files in the file area. This is how I usually use file transfer, and I hope you can see why there needs to be some kind of low-cost mode-switch operation in this case. I don't really understand how you could do this with a scripting language, as you say. How are you supposed to determine what modes are available, or what the particular protocol involved calls each mode? Leaving it up to the user is not adequate. It's occurred to me that the real problem is that these sub-protocols are a whole new layer of the system. They shouldn't be directly tied in to the file transfer tool; that leaves you having to do end-of-line conversion protocols and MacBinary over and over again, once for each transfer tool. Instead, there should be a set of low-level file transfer mode tools which the existing file transfer tools call generically to read and write Mac files. That way, when someone adds a new mode (like MacUnary), it would automatically apply to all file transfer protocols. Furthermore, applications could provide a list of available modes by using the GetInd calls to find the names of all the available mode tools. It is probably too late to include this in Comm Toolbox 1.0, but it seems to me it would definitely be worth including in a later version. Thanks again for your answers. My own mail also tends to get very late sometimes.... -- Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com "I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear." - Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"