Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Finder 6.0 "feature" is a pain Message-ID: <3601@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 11 Dec 87 10:24:29 GMT References: <4025@pucc.Princeton.EDU> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Sun Microsystems, TOPS Division, Berkeley Lines: 29 I always hated the need for that feature. Maybe the reason it's going away is that Apple's rumored Finder interface improvements will make it unneccessary. Let's say I have a TEXT file from Consulair Edit, back for the days of yore when I used Consulair C. If I double-click on it, then there are two possibilities: it will open the Consulair editor program, which I hope never to see again as long as I live; or it will not be able to find the Consulair editor and will not do anything except alert me. In fact, what I want it to do is open the MPW Shell on the file, but hey, the creator longwords don't match. Grr. Applications ought to have a way of saying which file types they are capable of opening, and the user should be able to specify a preferred application for each file type. Granted that this is expert-friendliness and Apple often seems to labor under the delusion that expert friendliness is incompatible with novice friendliness, but maybe they are finally figuring out that the two can go together. An even friendlier way of handling the same situation would be, if the creator application can't be found, bring up a list of applications which could be used for the file and let the user select as normal in the list (including standard file type power keys). If the list has only one entry, then use it without asking. A user preference could choose whether or not to always use the creator application if there are other possibilities. Dream on.... -- Tim Maroney, {ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg}!hoptoad!tim; hoptoad!tim@lll-crg "You say that this wasn't in your plan Don't mess around with the Demolition Man"