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From: sjc@angband.UUCP (Steve Correll)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Desired Finder Feature
Message-ID: <52@angband.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 17:01:35 EST
Article-I.D.: angband.52
Posted: Thu Apr 11 17:01:35 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Apr-85 03:31:56 EST
References: <66@uw-june>
Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL
Lines: 37

> While we're on the subject of the new finder, I'd like to put in a
> request for a feature that would be quite useful.  I'd like to do a set
> startup on a document, so the system would open that document when you
> booted from the disk the document is on.  I find that in most cases, I
> don't start an application, I open a template, modify it, and do a save
> as, which makes set startup pretty useless.

> I also have found this operation to be useful.  I have a
> "standard" Macpaint document which has my choice of ruler
> options, header, footer, and font preselected.  When I boot
> from my MacWrite disk, set startup drops me into "untitled"
> I then close it, open "standard" and "save as" the name
> for the document I'm creating.  From that point operations
> are as normal.  It would save some aggravation if I could
> set startup on the "standard" document.

I wish that every application which offers a panoply of user-settable
options would arrange to remember the settings from one execution to
the next.  Allowing "set startup" on a document solves this problem for
only one application per disk, which will seem restrictive when disks
are large.

The resource mechanism could have solved this problem for every
application. When the creator of the application defines a radio
button, or a check box, or a piece of edittext, s/he could be required
to specify the initial state of that button in the resource, instead of
burying it in the code of the application. Then a user could employ the
resource editor (or a special-purpose subset thereof) to customize the
application's initial state to meet his or her preferences.

Since it is too late to use the resource mechanism in this fashion,
application developers might borrow an idea from other operating systems
where applications typically read a text-file (often called a "profile") at
startup to determine how the user wants the options set up.
-- 
                                                           --Steve Correll
sjc@s1-b.ARPA, ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!sjc, or ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!sjc