Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dalcs!aucs!peter
From: peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 'Virtual' Folders - good idea!!
Message-ID: <1137@aucs.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jun 88 11:36:37 GMT
References: <443@esquire.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: School of Computer Science, Acadia Univ., Nova Scotia
Lines: 50

> This is all true, although I don't really know why everyone has problems
> with the current "solution" (i.e., just throw everything in the System
> Folder in a big jumble).  I agree it makes things hard to organize, but
> what exactly are you organizing, anyway?  I mean, there are no runnable
> programs in the System Folder, and really there are no double-clickable
> documents either.  I only rarely ever look in there -- mostly it just stays
> closed and buried off in the corner.  The only time I ever mess with it
> is to add new INITs...

Some of us are organization freaks so even if we don't look in the
system folder frequently we liked to keep things respectable (just
in case company comes!). If found my system folder used to be a
mess until I adopted an organization and stuck to it. Now it's
probably the best organized folder on my hard disk. What I did was
organize the system folder files as horizonal rows of icons. The
first row I call "System files", identified by a dummy folder on the
extreme left of this row by this name. If I have to add another system
file, I scroll to the right end of the row and add it there.

My next row is called INITs/cdevs, again identified by a folder by this
name, and again used only as a tag for the column (the only thing I
put in the folder are INITs and cdevs that I don't want to use). When
I add a new INIT or cdev, I scroll to the far right and add it to the end
of the row. I always do a cleanup selection on the new icon to make sure
it's positioned just right (like I said, some of us are organization
freaks).

My next row is one I call Fonts/DAs. This one is a little different. The
files that I keep opposite this folder are only my laserwriter downloadable
fonts. The screen fonts and DAs that I use I keep in the folder itself
rather than along side it like my INITs and cdevs row. I do this
primarily because I have Suitcase and it automatically looks for fonts
and DAs in a folder by this name, so I make use of this feature. I'd
do the same with my INITs and cdevs if the system automatically looked
in a particular folder.

I have some other rows, one called "misc" where I put things like help
and preferences files, one called Sounds where I put my digitized
sounds, and others I as need them. So life in my system folder is
quite acceptable since I've made a concerted effort into keeping
it organized. I'd still like to see the system look in certain
folders, however, on boot-up for things like fonts, das, cdevs, inits,
system files (the printer drivers and all those other files that are
part of the Mac system).

-- 
Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst
Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121
UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter
BITNET: Peter@Acadia  Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU