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From: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Attached-file icons vs. Font/DA Mover
Message-ID: <3293@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 24-Apr-87 01:37:20 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.3293
Posted: Fri Apr 24 01:37:20 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 18:38:47 EST
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 59

In article <1710@husc6.UUCP> hadeishi@husc7.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) writes:
>	There are advantages to this approach.  Having lots of
>icons for all the fonts is probably too messy and not advantageous.
>In this case, you might want to have something like a Font/DA Mover
>(call it Font Mover.)  This is simply because fonts really should
>be treated differently from support data directories or support
>libraries, in that any application can use them

Now, it was my idea, but I like it.  If you want to distribute a program 
for people to use in ANY configuration then you give them a Font Mover
program and your executable will give an error message that tells them
what it needs.  There are only so many things that can be wrong.  "I need
pipe.device to be in devs:"  Then the user whips out the Font Mover, opens
sys: on one side, opens the distribution disk on the other side, and boom!
it displays pipe.device as not being on the sys: disk.  The user clicks
and copies the file over.
>
>	However, one can implement both strategies.  For things like
>font management, you might want to implement something like a Font/DA Mover.
>For device drivers, libraries, printer drivers, data directories attached
>to an application, and so on (in particular the last use) you really want
>to use an attached-files icon approach.  

I think that using a Font/DA thingy would work better on all but the last
one, and all you need to do to keep the data directories attached is a 
drawer!  By putting the executable in a drawer (that also contains your
non-iconified data files) you let the user move EVERYTHING at once, and
that way the computer can always find the support files.  (If you start
from WB the CD will be the location of those files, and if you started
from CLI you can find the path to them by editing out the command name 
from argv[0].

Maybe there is a better way to do it.  I am talking about what to do Now.
I am releasing software Today, how do I do it.  Well, I give him a bootable
disk and tell him what my program needs to run by giving him error messages
when I don't find all my support files (libraries, and fonts, and devices...)
Then I give him the power to create his own environment.  Now, of course
you could do it with an install script, maybe that is a good option, but
that doesn't give the user as much control (and Joe User doesn't like
running programs that write to his hard disk unless he knows what is being
written, he is bound to feel more comfortable moving the files himself)

> I might be convinced that printer drivers should
>be put under the aegis of a Font/DA Mover, but this is not the way
>the Mac does it (there is a little icon for each printer driver in
>the System folder.)  

There are only two printers that can be used on the Mac, I don't think
that they would ever make a printer mover for two printers.

>				-Mitsu
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