Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!pt!k.cs.cmu.edu!wrs From: wrs@k.cs.cmu.edu (Walter Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Control Panel vs. Chooser Message-ID: <1170@k.cs.cmu.edu> Date: Mon, 22-Jun-87 17:30:44 EDT Article-I.D.: k.1170 Posted: Mon Jun 22 17:30:44 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 18:37:29 EDT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 37 It seems to me that since the Control Panel is now fully extensible (nice job, by the way), the Chooser is superfluous. Why isn't there a "Printers" cdev that lets you set the current printer (which darn well tells you what printer you're already using, unlike the Chooser) and other cdevs for whatever file servers, mail servers, or other weird stuff you install? It seems that the difference in functionality between the Chooser and the Control Panel is not at all well defined. How does one decide where things like "Startup Device" go? You're choosing a startup device, right? The cdev just displays a list of startup devices, from which one is chosen, right? Sounds like a Chooser task to me. Choosing which file server to use seems just as valid in the Control Panel as in the Chooser. When I first used AppleShare, I wandered around for about five minutes trying to figure out how to log in. Never occurred to me to look in the Chooser. The Chooser is a bunch of AppleTalk stuff added to Choose Printer, retaining the serial port assignment task and adding near-arbitrary extension capability with which all sorts of strange things are being added. It seems like these two extensible configuration-changing DAs are competing with each other for functionality. Remember when turning AppleTalk on and off bounced around between the Control Panel and Choose Printer/Chooser? Having both of these things seems like unnecessary confusion and, less importantly, waste of the precious, arbitrarily limited DA space. Now that I've said all this, I would be most interested if one of those wonderful Apple people out there would ask the person who made the decision to maintain this separation (or failed to make the decision to stop it) what the rationale was. Getting an answer would be an impressive boost for Apple's building reputation for openness... - Walt -- Walter Smith, Math/CS undergraduate, Carnegie-Mellon University CS graduate student starting August! uucp: ...!seismo!cmu-cs-k!wrs ARPA: wrs@k.cs.cmu.edu usps: 5139 Forbes Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213