🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8315@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> mls@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (mike.siemon) writes:
>
>The defensiveness of Mac fanatics about the oddities of the system is
>obscuring the point.  It is particularly obnoxious to be told that all

Yes... I'm tired of the responses people are posting like "well just
find your favorite editor and get into it and select the file you want
to open and open it etc" when clearly the issue here is that the user
DOES NOT want to go searching for an appropriate application.  Rather
he wants to simply double-click on the file and open it.  Period.

>The example of reading an arbitrary file is just that, an example of a
>much larger general problem.  If I have a file I may want to use it in
>a number of different ways, totally unconstrained by the file's origin
>or by my intentions when I create the file.


I agree that this is a problem but a problem that can also be
programmed around.  I see no reaon why a DA could not be written to
display a list of applications in a pull-down menu that one can
immediately select and open your signature-less, creator-less file
with.  I also see no reason why the APple Finder could not be modified
to take such unidentified files and apply a user-selecteable
application to them... particularly if they have the type specified as
"TEXT."  Or how about a ResEdit DA that allows you to quickly and
simply change the signature and creator types in arbitrary files?
POWERFUL!

The problem is that the file you speak of arrived onyour machine and
was not created by any method particularly native to your machine ...
i.e. it's just a text file that arrived through some means.  It would
be REALLY nice if the program you used had a menu entry that allowed
you to specify the target creator and signature when the file is
created on your system.  That way the appropriate application can be
run (most notably BinHex or Stuffit).  Better yet the application you
used should give the file a TeachText creator if none other is
specified since TeachText is available on the system installation
disks.

There's ways around it that clever programmers can devise and still
maintain the consistancey of the Mac and broaden it's generality.



-- 

John T. Nelson			UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn
Advanced Decision Systems	Internet:  jtn@potomac.ads.com
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