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From: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Xerox sues Apple!!! (GUI Design)
Message-ID: <1330@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 89 17:48:49 GMT
References: <1989Dec19.193744.6301@uunet!unhd>
Sender: news@primate.wisc.edu
Reply-To: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu
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From article <1989Dec19.193744.6301@uunet!unhd>, by rg@uunet!unhd (Roger Gonzalez ):
> 
> On a Mac, if I create a bunch of files (say 30) that all contain the
> string "foobar" in their name, can I delete "??foobar.*" without pointing
> at every blinking file?  I've never figured out how.
> 
You can't in the Finder, though you could in the various command-line
Finder substitutes available, and I think maybe in the new version
of the DA DiskTop. I'm not sure the situation need ever arise. When
I make a bunch of related files, I just put them all in a new folder, which
I can delete or copy with a single sweep of the mouse. This is easier to
do if you're running under MultiFinder, so that you can easily go to the
Finder to create a new folder, or if you're using one of the utilities
like Boomerang which lets you create folders from within the file save
dialog of programs.

With the Finder you can use the various sorting options to make it
easily to quickly delete all files of a certain type or date.


> The Mac methodology seems to be "I am an object, and am associated with the
> tool that created me.  I won't let you use the wrong tool, so don't worry."
> PC's look at it notably differently.  They say "There are objects, and there 
> are tools.  Use any tool you want on any object.  It's up to you to figure
> out the right tool for the job."  I prefer the latter schema, because it
> is inherently more powerful.  More dangerous, but more powerful.  In addition,

Actually the Mac doesn;t say "I won't let you use the wrong tool,"
rather it says "I'll get you the tool this object was created with
if you want me too." It also says, "If you want to use any tool on
any object, go right ahead. Just use ResEdit or any number of other
utilities or DAs to change the file type." Of course the tool may
not know what to do with the object and may even crash, but then it'sa
up to you to pick a tool that can do something reasonable. It's
actually not even that dangerous if you just use a text editor on the
object. Many of them will let you open any file regardless of type.

Since the Mac tends to have a few standard formats for objects, a wide
variety of tools can often be applied to a particular object without
having to pull any tricks. For instance, I can create a graph in
a graphing program, then paste it into essentially any drawing
program to modify it in any way I want. I can paste it through a
succession of programs if I want in order to do several different
kinds of things to it.

Gary Davis