Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!vax5.cit.cornell.edu!ckix
From: ckix@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (George Paci)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Version 7.0 questions
Message-ID: <1991Apr8.153415.3908@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 91 15:34:15 EDT
References: <258@valid.valid.com> <18440@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Mar15.03
Distribution: na,comp
Organization: Cornell University
Lines: 41

In article <1991Mar16.034517.3195@aeras.uucp>,
rob@aeras.uucp (Rob Rogers) writes:
>
> I also HATE the idea of double-clicking to open DAs and cdevs. I
> _never_ have more than 1 Finder window open at a time (even on my
> 21" monitor), and I'll be damned if I'm going to open 3 windows
> to get to a folder to open a DA that I use all the time. (I kind
> of like the idea of a small program that does it's job and gets
> out of my way). What do I do? Install it in OnCue or the so-called
> Application menu (if that's possible in 7.0)? Sounds a
> hell of a lot like a DA to me. So why bother?
>

It sounds like you've never gotten a chance to actually play around
with System 7.  I know you've in all likelihood heard this a million
times before, but there's really no reason for DAs in S7.  You can
take any application (however large) and drop it (or an alias of it)
into the apple menu.  Then to execute it, you just pull down the
apple menu and select it--just like a DA, except this works with _any_
program (and anything else you can double-click: cdevs, printers (beats
the hell out of the Chooser!), fileservers, etc.).

This feature pretty much supersedes OnCue, as well as freeing programmers
from the overhead involved with creating a DA--they just write a little
application instead.  Personally, I really like being able to double-click
just about any icon in the Finder.  I never realized how complicated
things used to be until I got a chance to try the way they will be....

As for your memory woes, they may not be quite as bad as you feared:
S7 (sound kind of like a modal logic, doesn't it?) eats up less than 1M
of RAM; the reason you need 2M is so you can run more than one app
under it.  Somehow I doubt you'll run out of memory very often with
4 Megs (of course, you know more about your situation than I do).

--George Paci (ckix@cornella.cit.cornell.edu)
I'm at work, so I need a disclaimer:
All opinions in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the
views of Cornell Information Technologies (which, incidentally, will
probably switch to System 7 as soon as reports of devils ice-skating
can be reliably confirmed....).