Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!claris!apple!goldman From: goldman@Apple.COM (Phil Goldman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: ramblings about exploration of OS-Release 6.0 MultiFinder (on a rainy Sunday afternoon) Keywords: bugs or "features" ??!! )-: Message-ID: <13694@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 11 Jul 88 04:00:03 GMT References: <2880@utastro.UUCP> Reply-To: goldman@apple.apple.com.UUCP (Phil Goldman) Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA Lines: 119 In article <2880@utastro.UUCP> werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: > [ToMultiFinder-1.1 problems...] You should probably talk to the author of ToMultiFinder-1.1. This is not an Apple product. > >.... eeek, the Applications (VersaTerm-3.1, QUED/M) can't start up: > they can't find one or the other of the files they seem to need to find!!! > > Ah, yes, I have changed names of some folders in the hierarchy-organization. >I bet that MultiFinder (or is it the application?) are looking in a >non-existing path ... The Finder's startup file does not depend on path names. The only way that a file could no longer be found is if the name of the volume changes, the name of the file changes, or the file is moved to a different folder. >Now, let's see, how does MultiFinder know what applications to bring up??!! >Looking in the "blessed-folder" doesn't show a file with a name like >"MultiFinder Startup" .... hmmm.... it wouldn't be using the file >"Finder Startup" now, or would it? that wouldn't be right ...... > MultiFinder does not "bring up" (i.e. launch) any of these applications, the Finder does. A third party Finder replacement could create its own method for launching apps at startup. In fact, I believe PowerStation does so. In any case, this is the reson for the name. MF simple launches whatever app the launcher requests. >..ok, let's remove "Finder Startup" from the "blessed folder" and try >again. - yep, MultiFinder comes up - all by itself; that was it! > >Now, let's see, how do I tell MultiFinder about a Startup-Set? Let's >look at "About MultiFinder" .... Geee, that isn't any help!!! (remember >how nice Switcher and Juggler was in such things?) Juggler was the pre-release name for MF; its about box was just as descriptive. The Switcher about box consisted of 5 hints, none of which pertained to startup launching. >...well, I guess, the >only way I know that it can be done is to bring up all the applications I >want to run under MultiFinder and then making MultiFinder the StartUp >application! that seems to write a file "Finder Startup" into the blessed >folder (which we now know seems to be the place that such things are >remembered in) done and tested - that's ONE-WAY, at least, it can be done. >gee, I hope there is a friendlier way to do that: what's wrong with having >an ASCII-text file "MultiFinder Startup" which one can edit? or a little >utility with a File-Selection Dialogue-window which you use to select all >the stuff you want to run at MultiFinder Startup ...? You can also select files (apps and documents) by selecting them before choosing "Set Startup..." from the Finder's "Special" menu. The caveat is that all the file must be in the same folder. An utility would be nice, actually. > and making multiple >sets for different purposes would be so much easier too ... You can save the "Finder Startup" file and rename it. Double clicking on it will launch all the appropriate apps and DAs. >oh, do I hope >there is an easier way .... would it be time to buy a manual, maybe for >the latest OS-Release? Maybe they actually expect me to read manuals now??? >Nooooo, can't be .... the Macintosh interface is for the "rest of them" and >thus designed to be intuitive. Besides, with near 20-years of computer >experience, and 4 on the Macintosh, I'd be able to figure this out without >consulting "paper" (yech), wouldn't I??!! Hmmmm, there most be some bozos >hidden among the people working on the user-interface at Apple ... >(Is Bozo-the-Clown still around?!? :-) No matter how intuitive the Mac user interface is, there will always be some actions that are impossible. There will also be actions that are very difficult. The goal is to make sure these two sets contain actions that are not at all useful. It's true that the Finder's set startup command is not as extensible as it could be. However, it is much more extensible than it was, and serious efforts are being made to make it much more so. Hang in there. >Now, let's take a look at the "About the Finder" window to see how the >memory was allocated. In which order are the applications grabbing their >memory space..?!? Could be important to influence that in order to be >able to free a continguous large block of memory when I need (god-forbid) >to use HyperCard, or a similar monster .... > >...hmm, the order the applications running under MultiFinder are displayed >doesn't reflect the order in which I started them. I wonder if one can >influence the memory allocation at all, or if the display reflects the >order in which memory was allocated...or if there is a chance in hell to >control this aspect of memory allocation in the first place ....oh, well. It is a fact that given the current app model where the memory allocated for an app cannot move and no hardware support for virtual memory that fragmentation will occur in MFs allocation scheme. It was a design decision to force the user to become intimately acquainted with this scheme. However, there is a section in the guide to MF that explains it for power users. Basically, MF will allocate space from the top of available memory. Therefore, the power user can play tricks by launching long-lived applications immediately, which would typically be the "Set Startup" apps anyway. >now, this is strange: this About MF-window keeps blinking about every second? >is there a background job running trying to update every so often? ... >now it stopped doing that again....strange ... There is a (harmless) bug in the MacII font manager under MF that causes synthesized fonts (fonts generated to exist at a certain screen bit depth) to be marked purgeable too easily from the system heap when several are used at once. This results in the numbers for the Finder changing even though no real changes have occurred. MF does calculations based on what *might* happen if purgeable blocks are purged. In fact they hardly ever are. This bug seems to be triggered by the exact environment created by the "About the Finder" window on a MacII in 8-bit color. -Phil Goldman Apple Computer