Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Ban the Cloud!
Message-ID: <8802192003.AA29265@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 19 Feb 88 20:03:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 42

>Try opening a disk drawer.  One drive spins for a while.  On the Amiga, it is a
>VERY long while with some drawers, and the user is forced to BUSY WAIT while
>watching a ZZ-cloud.  (Is it done yet?  No, move the screen up and down a few
>times, move a couple of windows to pass the time.  Is it done yet?)
>
>In my opinion, the WB software is COPPING OUT.  Deleting, snapshotting, copying-
>all these and more bring up the dreaded cloud.
>
>WRONG SOLUTION:  Don't put all .info files in one .info file.  That makes it
>hard to manipulate icons (like on the Mac.)  Leave it to the fast file system
>(I think) to store directories in a reasonable structure so we can get them
>in a reasonable amount of time.

	Actually, that is exactly the *right* solution.
If it weren't for the fact that all those .icon files clutter up my
directories, I would actually use the workbench.  Putting the icons in
a single file fixes all the delay problems, makes the directories 
quite a bit cleaner, and certainly does not make it anymore difficult
to manipulate them.

	Also, such a file need not be large at all, since you only
need to keep one image for the N icons that use that image.  Manipulation
is not difficult either.  The workbench would handle all manipulation,
and have additional commands to create/delete/modify icons and bind
them to files manually.  It would automatically delete icons for
files which have been deleted manually, etc.....

>	Let WB fork out into different tasks whenever a drawer is opened,
>		files are SNAPSHOTTED, DELETED, etc.  And while we are at it,
>	Add ability for name-based directory listings sorted alphabetically,
	by date, etc. like on the Mac.
>    In short, look for every call to SetZZCloud() in Workbench and replace
>	it with CreateProc() and the appropriate code.
>

	This is unrealistic.  You obviously have no concept as to the
hardships of writing multiple-cooperating-data_structre_sharing-processes.
Worse, such a change is not needed.  The *real* solution is to speed
up the workbench by removing the idiotic scanning of directories, and
idiotic openning/reading of multiple files.

					-Matt