Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!agate!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!elaine39.Stanford.EDU!draphsor From: draphsor@elaine39.Stanford.EDU (Matt Rollefson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Aliases again Message-ID: Date: 1 Jun 91 23:12:03 GMT References: <1991Jun01.033937.8241@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News) Organization: AIR, Stanford University Lines: 39 ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr) writes: [lots of stuff deleted] >Here's the setup: two volumes in addition to the boot volume: say Apps and >Docs. >Application (Word in this case) on Apps; its alias on Docs. >A TEXT file dropped on Word (on Apps) opens fine; it does not open when >dropped on Words alias (on Docs). This is weird, since the document is on >Docs, i.e. it likes the application on a different volume, but doesn't like >its alias on *the same volume*! >Now an experiment: copy Word to Docs; same document dropped on this Word >opens - no surprise. Make an alias which points to that local copy of Word >- now dropping works with that "local" alias too! >There may be some simple reason for this, but I stand by my gripe: aliases >*do not* behave like applications, unless everything is on the same volume. >This may be particularly important in network situations. Am I nitpicking? I believe that there is a very simple reason for this. On the Apps drive, the desktop has the information from the Word application - thus it knows how to open the various documents that word can handle. On the Docs drive, the desktop does not include Word's bundle information. (It apparently does not come with the alias - probably to save space.) Thus the finder doesn't know what application to open. Suggested solution: copy word to the Docs drive, then delete it. The bundle information will remain in the desktop files until you rebuild the desktop. Not a perfect solution, but it should work. (Note that I haven't tried this, so if it doesn't work, don't blame me! :) ) >Eric Behr, Illinois State University, Mathematics Department >Internet: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu Bitnet: ebehr@ilstu -- Draphsor vo'drun-Aelf draphsor@leland.stanford.edu