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From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Workbench improvements
Message-ID: <2967@well.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Apr-87 05:06:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.2967
Posted: Thu Apr 30 05:06:27 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 2-May-87 07:47:10 EDT
References: <12907@watmath.UUCP> <160006@wsucshp.UUCP>
Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 63
Summary: Leave the filesystem definition alone!

In article <160006@wsucshp.UUCP> kinner@wsucshp.UUCP (Bill Kinnersley ) writes:
>acs@amdahl.UUCP (Tony Sumrall) writes:
>Really, icons  should be system information.  They should be handled privately
>by the filing system, not kept out in public to clutter up your directory,
>and potentially get lost.
>
>The Right Way To Do It would be to build icons into the filing system.
>Dedicate a word in the file header block to point to the disk location of the
>corresponding icon.  In fact, there are several spots in the header block
>currently not being used.  A nil pointer of course means no icon for that file.
>
	Once again, I get to use my favorite contradictory phrase:

	Wrongo!

	Many people fail to realize that the Workbench on the Amiga is *NOT*
part of the operating system.  It is an *APPLICATION* that runs on top of
the operating system.  The fact that it happens to be stored with Kickstart
doesn't change this.

	Workbench opens a borderless backdrop window (using Intuition), and
sticks disk icon gadgets on it.  When you double-click on a gadget (a
function defined by Workbench and nowhere else), Workbench creates a window
and starts filling it with gadgets.  Gadget imgaes are stored in .info files
(you already knew all this, didn't you? :-).

	Since Workbench is an application, it has to use the operating
system as it exists.  Nobody hacks an operating system to pieces just to
accomodate one application.  Awright, maybe they do, but it surely isn't
common.

	The Workbench designer decided to glob-search for .info files.  A
perfectly reasonable approach under normal circumstances.  Unfortunately,
Amiga got stuck with a cheesy DOS that makes globbing the most inefficient
thing you could do.

	I always thought that the simplest and easiest-to-implement hack to
the Workbench would be to create a file called "foo" (call it whatever you
like; the name isn't important).  "foo" would be an ASCII text file that
contains, on each line, the filenames of all the .info files in this
directory.

	Reconstruction of this file would be pathetically simple.  Using
this file would be just as simple.  Just open the file, read the filename,
open the filename, read the icon info, close the filename, and repeat for
all remaining filenames in the file (there would be one filename per line).

	But *PUHLEEZE* don't wack on the filesystem just to make Workbench's
life easier.  You'll make everyone else's life more difficult.

	Anyway, that's my opinion....

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