Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!joseph From: joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Why are prefs put in files, not resources? Message-ID: Date: 10 Jan 91 22:39:16 GMT References: <1991Jan10.044428.6108@spool.cs.wisc.edu> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 29 As I understand it, writing prefs to your own resource fork became a no-no with the introduction of AppleShare, read the tech notes on being appleshare compatible to get the details right from the horses mouth. I know two problems with an application writing prefs to its own resource fork: 1) The application must have write access to itself to save its prefs file. Often when an application is launched from a write protected floppy or AppleShare server, the application does not have write access to itself. An application can still save prefs if it puts them in the System:Preferences folder because a persons system disk is almost always write enabled. 2) If An application is designed to be AppleShare Multiple Launch compatible, it may have many people running it and trying to set preferences simultaneously. Writing those preference choices back to the application's resource fork just causes confusion. Chances are, a users settings will be changed before the next time they launch the application. If, on the other hand, you write each users prefs in their System:preferences folder, it will remain safe, and your application will act as expected the next time it is launched. There may also be other reasons for not doing this, but these are the two that immediately come to my mind. Seymour Joseph Rutgers Universtiy LCSR