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From: mce@tc.fluke.COM (Brian McElhinney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 'Virtual' Folders - good idea!!
Message-ID: <4172@fluke.COM>
Date: 20 Jun 88 21:01:21 GMT
References: <0Wiq4jy00Xc-16w0=y@andrew.cmu.edu>
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Simon Peter Gatrall writes:
> The thing that everyone who has been so enthusiastic about this idea
> is forgetting is that it is hard to make complicated features like these
> transparent.  The more "features" you add the harder it is to make a
> consistent, clear interface.
> 
> Instead of the trend of bigger and bigger systems, and bigger and
> bigger applications, Apple needs to reevaluate its whole system.
> It would be better if software could be even more compatible than
> it is now so that you could use many small applications as building
> blocks, instead of these big messy programs.

One solution is to adapt Smalltalk's concept of a meta-document.  To the user,
the meta-document would be a system software application, allocating areas of a
document for use among various data types.  Word processors would have areas
separate from drawings, etc.  To the programmer, it would mean a new
architecture that passes events to CODE-like resources that match the type of
data the user is manipulating.  The user interface is similar what we already
have: the File and Edit menus belong to the meta-document, and the others
change depending on the data selected.

This is a radical change, and thus suspect.  And of course there would be more
to it than a single paragraph can describe.  But with the new system software
rewrite providing virtual memory and IPC, it will not be impossible.  The
Macintosh user interface has been static for a long time now; it's about time
to move on.


Brian McElhinney
mce@tc.fluke.com