Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!bskendig
From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Gripes about System 7.0
Message-ID: <5691@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 25 Jan 91 03:55:55 GMT
References: <11827@goofy.Apple.COM> <5659@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <11848@goofy.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@idunno.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Starfleet Academy: Princeton University
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In article <11848@goofy.Apple.COM> lsr@Apple.com (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
>In article <5659@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, bskendig@dry.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes:
>> It just bothers me that the method of finding an application to open a
>> document should be handled a wee bit more thoroughly -- especiall now
>
>I think the current mechanism works well for the average user.  The 
>Finder tells you what's happening and doesn't do anything behind your 
>back.  The are some hooks in the system for a hacker to change things 
>(perhaps not all the hooks one would like, but I think you can still do a
>lot of stuff).

Problem is -- and I'm a consultant here at my school, so I witness
this a lot -- a user will have a copy of Word that he's been told will
open this MacWrite file he has, so he double-clicks the MacWrite
file... and is told that "the application is busy or missing."  As I
seem to gather from what I've been told about System 7, the Mac will
_still_ complain that an application couldn't be found for that
document, and will leave it at that.  (Someone mentioned that the most
the Finder will do now is to suggest that TeachText be used for plain
text and PICT files, and no more.)

(Of course _you_ know that the person could just open Word then load
the file from there, and _I_ know that, but I've found that people
assume that if the Finder says they can't load it, then they can't
load it at all.)

My point is that the Finder has all the important information (that
the file is a MacWrite file, and Word can read MacWrite files), but it
doesn't bother to look to see that Word can be used.  Doing something
behind the user's back?  If he double-clicked on the file, he most
likely wanted to open it, and when the file brings up an error dialog
rather that being opened, the user thinks there's something funky
happening -- that's not the *intuitive* response.  At the very least,
have it bring up an SFGetFile dialog: "An application for this
document could not be found.  Choose another application to open it
with."  ... and, optionally, remember this selection for later.

As for the hooks: Why make it so that only hackers can tinker with the
resources to change the default applications?  Remember when you used
to have to fiddle with the LAYO resource to make your desktop
prettier, and see how Apple now made that into a cdev?  Why not make
an `applications' cdev in which you can specify what will load text
files, pictures, soundfiles, spreadsheets, or any other type of file
you choose?  It'll ask you to pick an example file (you'd pick a
MacPaint graphic), then it asks you what application you will want to
use to open it as a default (you'd pick SuperPaint, for example).

I know I'm picking a fine point to death, but it seems that too little
is being done about it.  Why is it that I can select twenty files that
look like pieces of paper (and just happen to have been made by Word)
and load them all into Word with a double-click, but to see these
twenty other files that look like pieces of paper (and just happen to
have been made by MacWrite), I have to select "Open...", scroll down
to the right name, and double-click twenty times?

(Which, of course, raises a case for multiple selections in Standard
File dialogs that I won't even get into right now. ;)

Apple, is there a good reason why you didn't go this far?  Is it
something you'll consider for System 8?


     << Brian >>


| Brian S. Kendig      \ Macintosh |   Engineering,   | bskendig             |
| Computer Engineering |\ Thought  |  USS Enterprise  | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU
| Princeton University |_\ Police  | -= NCC-1701-D =- | @PUCC.BITNET         |
"It's not that I don't have the work to *do* -- I don't do the work I *have*."