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From: ta-aca@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew C. Athan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Laziness
Keywords: Terminal, Viewer, Services
Message-ID: <1991May3.230846.27038@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 3 May 91 23:08:46 GMT
References: <1991May1.142136.19889@sinix.UUCP> <660@rosie.NeXT.COM>
Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Reply-To: ta-aca@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew C. Athan)
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 34
Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu


>> I'm lazy. That's why I like the file browser in Workspace Manager. I
>> hate typing "cd, ls, cd... etc". But here's the problem: you've
>> browsed your way down a deep directory path and decided you want to
>> do something unixy with the files you see. So you'd like to launch
>> a terminal window at the current directory. But you can't! It's so
>< rambling deleted >
>
>
>What Terminal (or Stuart) needs to do is provide a service which expects a  
>'thing' (document or directory) and then cd to the appropriate directory
>before  
>initing or becoming key (if already running).  Then the file viewer menu
>would  
>provide something like Services>Terminal>cd to dir p (or something similar).
>
>Of course a new app could be written that provides the service then launches
>Terminal.


It is impotant to understand the difference between Terminal (or Stuart)
[[The App]] and the program that is running in the Terminal window [[The
Shell]].  It is the shell which needs to "cd"  Stuart/Terminal have nothing
to do with details of what the app in the window is doing (besides acting as
one end of a pty).

So ... the problem is communicating the "cd" command to
csh/ksh/bash/whatever.  Probably the only generic guranteed to work solution
is to have the Services> item of which you speak "type" a cd command into the
window in question.  You, as the user of the Service, would have to make sure
your shell is at a prompt which can accept the "cd."

aca
//Email:  ta-aca@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu   OR   athan@cs.columbia.edu