Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!goldman
From: goldman@Apple.COM (Phil Goldman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: DA's that don't open
Message-ID: <17709@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 24 Sep 88 21:12:55 GMT
References: <771@nvuxr.UUCP> <513@poseidon.UUCP>
Reply-To: goldman@apple.com.UUCP (Phil Goldman)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 32

In article <513@poseidon.UUCP> ech@poseidon.UUCP (Edward C Horvath) writes:
>From article <771@nvuxr.UUCP>, by ccw@nvuxr.UUCP (christopher wood):
>> ...I have a couple of desk accessories (Unstuffit, sigmaedit) 
>> that, when I try to open them, just go beep instead...
>
>The DA needs more memory.  Advice from Apple is to open DAs that you
>hope to use BEFORE starting any other applications (this presumably
>allows the DA Handler to expand appropriately, which implies that the
>DA Handler can expand it's partition, something MY application can't do!).
>This also defeats the whole idea of a DA, which is to be something close
>at hand when you encounter a need for it...sigh...
>

DAs go in the system heap, not the DA Handler heap.  The DA Handler heap is
just large enough to fit its code resources and resource map.  It does
not expand.  The reason it is useful to launch the DA Handler first is that
otherwise it will cause fragmentation in the MultiFinder heap, if it hangs
around, since like all apps it is locked at a certain location.  The advice
for DAs holds for apps as well.  If you have an app that you will be using
for a long time you should launch it first.  The advice needs to be more
explicit for DAs only because to the casual user there is not (and ideally
shouldn't be) any knowledge of the DA Handler.

Possibly the reason that the large DAs are not launching is that somehow
the system heap is being constrained, either by running many apps, or else
by running an app that must run in the first meg of memory.

If no DAs are opening then it is possible that the DA Handler is no longer
in the system folder.

-Phil Goldman
Apple Computer