Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!camex!lloyd!kent
From: kent@lloyd.camex.com (Kent Borg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Open Finder
Message-ID: <1765@camex.COM>
Date: 31 Jan 91 20:11:36 GMT
References: <17412@imag.imag.fr>
Sender: news@Camex.COM
Reply-To: kent@camex.com (Kent Borg)
Organization: Camex Inc., Boston, MA
Lines: 33

In article <17412@imag.imag.fr> gourdol@imag.fr (Gourdol Arnaud) writes:
>The Finder 7.0 is (IMHO) a great improvement over old Finder.
>However, as noted recently on the net, it's still not perfect.
>I was wondering if Apple was planning to open this Finder, as it did
>for the Mac a few years ago. 

Originally 7.0 was supposed to have an extensible Finder.  The
FileShare that is bundled with 7.0 is an example of a Finder
Extension.  So the current state of the world is that in the current
beta, Finder Extensions exist.

The catch is that the programmer's interface for Finder Extentions is
not in the current beta of Inside Macintosh VI.  Nor are Finder
Extensions in any of the talk I have heard form Apple recently.

Clearly something has happened to them, but they have not altogether
vanished.

Rumor: That writing FileShare as a Finder Extension was extremely
difficult even when the Finder authors were around to help
out--something we outsiders will not have available.  That the specs
for current Finder extensions will never be made public.

My presumption is that by keeping the interface specs secret Apple is
free to try to fix them, only FileShare will have to be updated to
follow the changes.  Let's hope that they can fix the interface and
tell us how it works.


--
Kent Borg                            internet: kent@camex.com   AOL: kent borg
                                            H:(617) 776-6899  W:(617) 426-3577
Kent's Invasion Countdown: I was off by 24-hours.