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Path: utzoo!linus!wanginst!vishniac
From: vishniac@wanginst.UUCP (Ephraim Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Re: Desired Finder Feature
Message-ID: <483@wanginst.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Apr-85 08:55:35 EST
Article-I.D.: wanginst.483
Posted: Wed Apr 17 08:55:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Apr-85 05:24:39 EST
References: <66@uw-june> <52@angband.UUCP> <1405@amdahl.UUCP>
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 32

> > > 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 wish that every application which offers a panoply of user-settable
> > options would arrange to remember the settings from one execution to
> > the next...
> > ... 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...
> >          ...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.

> Save me from tons of little profiles on my disk, please.

Actually, the Mac provides an ideal place for saving a default document
with each application: the data fork of the application's file.  To modify
the default values for settings saved per-document, you would just start
up the application, edit the untitled document, and select a new method
called "save as (prototype, untitled, default...)" from the save as...
dialog box.  The edited document would be saved (pretty much invisibly)
as the data fork of the already-existing application file.

Advantages: provides a use for both forks of the file :-)
	    no special purpose utilities
	    no special purpose files

-- 
Ephraim Vishniac
  [apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!vishniac
  vishniac%Wang-Inst@Csnet-Relay