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From: philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Opening "foreign" documents in Standard Open
Message-ID: <1990Jul4.181333.10284@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 4 Jul 90 18:13:33 GMT
References: <1990Jul4.042132.11832@d.cs.okstate.edu> <8980@goofy.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System)
Reply-To: philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 44

In article <1990Jul4.042132.11832@d.cs.okstate.edu>,
minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) writes:
> From article <8980@goofy.Apple.COM>, by lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein):
> | I think you're attempting to replace the Finder with an extended Standard
> | File, and I'm not sure that's a good idea.  I think it's similar to trying
> | to replace the Finder with an extended Apple menu.  
> | 
> | Both features (Standard File and the Apple menu) are artifacts of the
> | original Macintosh, and both should probably be replaced by something that
> | fits better with the System 7 environment.  
> | 
> | For example, you really don't need the Open dialog at all; users
should just
> | double click on the icon in the Finder.  (That doesn't always work today
> | because MultiFinder has to fake out the application.  But eventually
> | applications will support the standard AppleEvent to open files.)
> 
>   I would scream bloody murder if you took away my standard file
> dialog!!! Perhaps a way (button?) to "go looking" would allow me to use
> the Finder instead. I personally think the speed of the finder is pretty
> bad for picking a file from within an application. The windows clutter
> the screen terribly and take too long to update. (IMHO, of course.)
> Also, it's nice to have the std file box come up situated at the place
> you left it so you can grab more files in the same place very quickly. I
> have yet to play with a NeXT, but I suspect the thingy they use to
> navigate can be very efficient, much in the same vane as std file.
> Perhaps we need to extend std file to include more option similar to the
> finder like sorting views and multiple selections. What say ye net?
> 
Maybe my original idea wasn't so great; neither is doing everything through
the Finder. Maybe we should focus on the notion that both of these things
are becoming obsolete, and some better concept could replace both. How
about a browser capable of either listing documents belonging to the front
application or all documents, with a variety of views (by name, by icon
etc.), and a pane to show the first page of a document if the application
owning it is "browser smart"? Sort of like the current Finder, but
optimized to be as easy to use as the current open, and with a few
extras to help you decide if you would _really_ like to switch out of
the current application to open a document.

Further comments? Better ideas?

Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu