Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lanl!cmcl2!esquire!sbb From: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: 'Virtual' Folders - good idea!! Message-ID: <442@esquire.UUCP> Date: 27 Jun 88 19:41:37 GMT References: <8806161351.AA09732@decwrl.dec.com> <430031@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> <6082@dcatla.UUCP> Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) Organization: DP&W, New York, NY Lines: 36 In article <6082@dcatla.UUCP> dxjsb@sunb.UUCP (Jack S. Brindle) writes: >The subject of 'Virtual Folders has been very interesting, but >there are some ramifications that are being missed. What happens >when the user faces a 'mini-finder' dialog such as that displayed >by SFGetFile? He will still see every file in the 'real' directory, >plus all those in the 'Virtual' directories. This does not alleviate >the cluttered directory problem at all. One would hope that the entire modal "mini-Finder" idea will go away soon. In case anyone hasn't noticed, it's kind of a kludge, especially in the age of MultiFinder. Since Apple is going to be rewriting things, it would be a good idea to take another look at how HFS is interacted with from within an application; the narrow, claustrophobic view of your disk the mini-Finder gives you (i.e., where am I in relation to other directories? what are some of my sibling directories, etc.) worked well for the original Mac, but ever since HFS and large hard disks, it's been kind of a hack. I won't miss it. On the other hand, I just saw a demo of Open Look at Usenix (it was strictly hand's off, though, since from what I understand if you sneeze it crashes), and the Sun rep was touting the hideous user-interface. One thing she was proud of in particular was an "Open..." dialog box that has a push-pin in it so it stays around after the file is opened (i.e., becomes non-modal). This is wonderful, I guess, but what was more interesting to me was why, after the Mac has been around for 4 years already, you had to *type in* the name of a file (i.e., no scrolling list of appropriate files). She didn't have any good answer to that, except to say that the interface "wasn't finalized" yet. So people in Mac-land shouldn't gripe too much. Apple did a *fine* job and is still way ahead of the pack in many areas. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." ...!cmcl2!esquire!sbb | - David Letterman