bruceb@amiga.UUCP (Bruce Barrett) (05/22/86)
I had intended to publish this earlier but haven't gotten around to it
til now. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL COMMODORE-AMIGA RECOMMENDATION. It
is intended as "food for thought" and a starting place for your product
release format. Please feel free to discuss this and other methods.
Placing items in the .info tooltypes fields is another way that may help.
--Bruce Barrett
Proposal for standard Tool, tool support, and project access.
Background:
Textcraft, and possibly other utilities have "solved" the
problem of "where are my support files" by making reference to "SYS:".
This works well if you boot Textcraft as your system diskette but fails
if you boot a "standard" workbench diskette. It will also fail if you
move Textcraft into a subdirectory of a hard disk. In all fairness it
was inevitable that one of the first few tools point out this problem.
The following suggested ground rules are an attempt to fix this problem.
"OK" assumptions on the part of the program/developer:
o Support files/drawers will be available in the same directory
as the tool
o Support file and drawer names will not be changed by the user.
"NOT OK" assumptions on the part of the program/developer:
o The tool will reside on a specific volume (name).
o The tool will not be renamed.
o The name of the workbench diskette is "Workbench"
o The tool will reside on the WB boot diskette (sys:)
Ground Rules:
1. All files required for a tool to run need to be in a
drawer/subdirectory that is in the same directory as
the tool itself.
2. Optional support items (tutorials, demos, fonts, drivers, tables,...)
will all have icons (either single files or <empty looking>
drawers) containing all the support files. This allows the user
to delete unneeded support material on their COPY of the master
diskette.
3. If all files, or some group of files are necessary they should be
placed in a "padlocked" drawer (or file icon), and made
"undeletable".
4. Application should not depend on specific volume names.
5. New documents will go in project or tool directories. If the tool
was opened with a project it goes in the same drawer as the
project. If a tool was opened "directly" new projects will
go in the same disk/drawer as the tool.
6. Whenever a new project is created, or an old one changed and saved
one of the following must be done.
1) If the file type matches your tool (as in a Textcraft file
being rewritten by Textcraft) then: The name of the default
tool will be updated to match the current location (AND name)
of the tool. Moving and renaming tools causes semi-automatic
updating of default tool names for projects. This does
require 1 extended selection (then save) of project and tool
per project.
2) If the file type does not match your tool (as in a spelling
checker "fixing" a Textcraft file) the name and location of
the default tool for a project shall not be changed. The
user still has explicit control over the default tool by
using the info command. More than 1 tool can be used on a
single project without affecting the default tool.
7. Tools should not reference SYS:, L:, DEV:, C:, S:, FONTS:, or LIBS:
for their own files. If for some reason they need to copy
something into one of these directories an installation
program should be provided, AND the documentation should
explain that this is going on and what files are being
transferred.
8. If a tool cannot find its required support files it should:
a) Put up a requester asking the user for the location
of the files it needs. (Preferred)
b) Print a message and continue (crippled). (second best)
c) Display a message/requester to this effect and exit.
9. Tools should not reference hard coded drive names (DF0:, DF1,...).
10. If you discover that the tool and project are on the same drive
when updating the default tool name (as in 6.2 above) change
the name to :sub1/sub2/tool, not Vol_name:sub1/sub2/tool.
==================================================================
Textcraft Example:
Volume name: Textcraft
Files in "root": Textcraft & info (executable)
Textcraft512 & info
TC Support (note, new drawer name)
Read Me For News & info
Files in "TC Support": Std Documents (locked drawer)
Tutorial Files (locked drawer)
Textcraft Setup (TC Prefs, no info)
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The Read Me For News file will have as its default tool
"Textcraft:Textcraft". Any new documents (originally)
will also have as their default tool "Textcraft:Textcraft"
1) If the diskette were to be renamed "Letters" the following
would occur:
Double clicking documents will work as before.
2) If Textcraft were renamed to "My_WP" the message:
"Cannot open :Textcraft. Error 205(or 218)"
would occur when the user tried to open an existing document.
3) If Textcraft and its support files were moved into a sub-
directory of a hard disk the message:
"Cannot open :Textcraft. Error 205(or 218)"
would occur when the user tried to open an existing document.
The introduction manual should tell the user to use extend
select or use info to change the default tool when this happens.
Any new documents would set the default tool to:
"HD_Name:/editors/textcraft_dir/textcraft"
-- or --
":/editors/textcraft_dir/textcraft"
4) Running a spelling program: Extend-selecting will be
required unless and until the user changes the default tool.
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