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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!well!wdh
From: wdh@well.UUCP (Bill Hofmann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Macintosh One-Liners
Message-ID: <13877@well.UUCP>
Date: 29 Sep 89 22:24:09 GMT
References: <221@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu> <4452@internal.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: wdh@well.UUCP (Bill Hofmann)
Distribution: na
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 22

In article <4452@internal.Apple.COM> carl@Apple.COM (Carl C. Hewitt) writes:
>If I'm not mistaken, Apple DTS has officially sanctified the use of a folder
>called "Preferences" in the System Folder for preference files.  Programs
>have to be written to know about this folder, but if programmers start using
>it, it will have the nice effect of reducing the number of preference files
>in the system folder to a manageable number.  

I think you are mistaken.  There was a discussion quite some time ago (at
one of the Developer Conferences) about just this problem, and Darin Adler
said that DTS was thinking about some way to solve the problem, but I haven't
heard a peep.  The problem is bigger than it appears: aside from the issue
of what to call it in English, what happens when you go to another country
(I know, if they don't speak English... 8->).  As a user, I'd like to see
the solution extended to support folders for cdevs and INITs and etc. I
suspect (I hope: scott douglass, are you listening?) that the system 7
finder will address this issue a bit better.  As far as I'm concerned,
this should be a system level support: SysEnvirons or Gestalt or whatever
would return a dirID for the location of the preferences folder, and
somebody else (Finder, Control Panel General cdev, whatever) would let the
user name it what they pleased.

-Bill