Post-it Dream

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3 total messages Started by Dave Griffiths Sat, 08 Aug 1992 23:03

#504

Author: Dave Griffiths
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1992 23:03

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My dream is to be able to attach a little Post-it window to any document
displayed in any application. For instance, when I'm replying to mail, I
quite often forget whether I've answered a particular message or not. Imagine
being able to attach a Post-it to the mail message which appeared whenever
you viewed the message. This Post-it window would contain a small message
and (preferably) a hyper-link to some other document, eg my reply mail
message. A database could keep track of these Post-it notes.

I wonder how far we are from an OS architecture that would realize this
dream? Perhaps the rumoured Object Oriented file system would help? You could
have a file which looked and behaved just like a normal ascii file to
applications which access it using the usual Unix file system calls, but
this file system object could be subclassed to provide a richer set of features
(such as my Post-it note) to applications which could understand them. This
would probably mean my Post-it application being automatically launched when
the Mail app opened the message file.

Is this what people mean when they talk about a Document orientated
architecture?

On another note, is it feasable to have a file object that lets you access
it as either ascii or rich text with one of these a subclass of the other?
Which would be the root class?

Well I was going to write a much more basic Post-it application which would
be based on Services. You call the Post-it service with the name of the
current file. I've abandoned that idea because most applications don't offer
the name of the current document to a service. (I believe that NeXT should
add setFilename:/getFilename methods to Window, encouraging developers to
use them [you usually need something like that anyway], and let the
application by default offer this name to Services). Also my favourite
target app for such a service - Mail - wouldn't work anyway since all messages
are bundled up in one big mbox file. (A mistaken hangover from Unix).

BTW, I haven't heard any mention of Mail in 3.0. Is it enhanced in any way?

Dave Griffiths

Re: Post-it Dream

#525

Author: Gregory H. Anderson
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 16:02

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In article <1992Aug8.230323.340@prim> prim!dave@germany.eu.net (Dave  
Griffiths) writes:
> 
> My dream is to be able to attach a little Post-it window to any document
> displayed in any application.
> [remainder deleted]

I think file-based NeXTlinks will work sort of this way in 3.0, as least  
from what I remember at NeXTworld Expo. Documents will follow the .rtfd  
standard, where each 'file' is actually a directory wrapper for its  
contents, which may include images (in the case of .rtfd) and links  
(NXSelection objects). So I guess you could use this as a sort-of post-it,  
although it would appear somewhere within the body of the document in both  
places (source and destination).

--
Gregory H. Anderson          | "We're very tolerant around here,
Benevolent Dictator-for-Life |  being only amateurs ourselves."
Anderson Financial Systems   | - Tortoise (Godel, Escher, Bach)
greg@afs.com  (Nextmail OK)  |

Re: Post-it Dream

#543

Author: Dave Griffiths
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 16:20

23 lines
1474 bytes

In article <1992Aug10.160243.740@afs.com> greg@afs.com writes:
>In article <1992Aug8.230323.340@prim> prim!dave@germany.eu.net (Dave  
>Griffiths) writes:
>> 
>> My dream is to be able to attach a little Post-it window to any document
>> displayed in any application.
>> [remainder deleted]
>
>I think file-based NeXTlinks will work sort of this way in 3.0, as least  
>from what I remember at NeXTworld Expo. Documents will follow the .rtfd  
>standard, where each 'file' is actually a directory wrapper for its  
>contents, which may include images (in the case of .rtfd) and links  
>(NXSelection objects). So I guess you could use this as a sort-of post-it,  
>although it would appear somewhere within the body of the document in both  
>places (source and destination).
>

From what you say it sounds like it only applies to RTF files, and not to
WordPerfect, WriteNow, Adobe Illustrator, Improv etc etc documents. I can't
think how my suggestion could be implemented without a special (object-
oriented?) file system. Anybody know what NeXT's plans are for 4.0?

Dave Griffiths

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