lamy@utai.UUCP (Jean-Francois Lamy) (09/22/86)
| Why? Just make each directory in $PATH a menu, and the applications in | it menu entries. They can then be used just like the applications in | the shell window, except you have to pick them up off the menu. This | lets the experienced user get to all the Unix commands they want. I don't know about you, but my path is set path=(~/bin /ai/bin /usr/local /usr/new /usr/ucb /usr/bin /bin \ /usr/hosts /u7/path/server/bin /usr/new/mh .) And I wouldn't dare estimate how many programs there are in there... I'd rather go for a paned window shell, with one pane giving you a modified file selection dialog. Selecting a program to run could be done by simulating a "executables" dictionary, with a flat structure that would reflect the path. I would propose modifying the file selection dialog so that it would incrementally restrict the highlighted candidate file names as you type ANY file name (thereby giving you your position in the tree and an indication that the name you are typing is unambiguous). When a program is selected the shell pops up a form where I can fill in the options and get help for each of them (what a weird idea...). (Typing is an option, and a pane contains a local file selection window, as above). You can execute the form when done or simply close it. In either case, the form becomes an icon, available for future editing, reinvocation, or inclusion in pipes. Saving icons for frequently used set-ups gives you aliasing. But even typing "macdraw" in a Unix window on a big screen Mac would be heavenly... -- Jean-Francois Lamy AI Group, Dept of Computer Science CSNet: lamy@ai.toronto.edu University of Toronto EAN: lamy@ai.toronto.cdn Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A4 UUCP: lamy@utai.uucp