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From: lsr@Apple.com (Larry Rosenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Gripes about System 7.0
Message-ID: <11863@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 26 Jan 91 01:40:13 GMT
References: <11827@goofy.Apple.COM> <5659@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <11848@goofy.Apple.COM> <5691@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
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In article <5691@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes:
> 
> 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

> 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

You are right in general, but in this particular case, I don't think the
Finder knows that Word can read MacWrite files.  (Word doesn't contain an
FREF for MacWrite files.)

> rather that being opened, the user thinks there's something funky
> happening -- that's not the *intuitive* response.  At the very least,

The dialog has been improved in System 7.  (There are options for a
document to identify what application created it.)

> 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.

Again, you can't always tell what application can open a document.

> 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

It keeps hackers off the streets. :-)  

Putting these things into resources gives 3rd parties the opportunity to
fill a need.  It would be nice if Apple could build this stuff in, but 
there's only so much engineering, documentation, UI, talent available and
tradeoffs have to be made.

> an `applications' cdev in which you can specify what will load text

Adding features such as this is rarely as easy as it seems.  

But if you're interested, you can implement this cdev and interface it
to the extension that I have already to make this easier to configure.

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

I know that lots of neat features fall by the wayside because they turn
out to be too complicated to implement, or don't work well in user testing,
or end up being lower in priority than other features.

It's certainly worthwhile to make these kind of suggestions, because they
might make it into a system someday.