john13@garfield.MUN.EDU (John Russell) (11/08/88)
Just now I decided that it would be a good idea to provide some actual Workbench support in a program. I had already hacked in some defaults that would be used if the program was called from the Workbench, but these settings really need to be customizable -- I use half a dozen sets of command line arguments regularly -- so that wasn't really suitable. The last 6 disks I've filled with PD stuff, most of which includes source, had _not one_ example of parsing Workbench arguments. To be fair there are some programs I know do support the Workbench that I haven't been able to get source to, but the fact remains that most of what is floating around either contains the warning "must be run from CLI" or is a CLI-based program that was given an icon and that's it: no parsing of arguments passed via tooltypes. Come on, what with all the complaints about how Mickey-Mouse the Workbench is, I don't see programmers doing a great deal to make their own improvements to it... not necessarily by re-writing it from scratch but by writing all their programs to take maximum advantage of the icon interface. That way, if CBM does come out with a super-fantastic Workbench for 1.4 the support programs will already exist to give it that professional flavour. Speaking of which, I've yet to see many itty bitty Workbench programs for doing the usual CLI grunge work, unless you count those that let you run a batch file from an icon. Programs like the special directory-assign programs supplied with Grabbit and Calligrapher. Mac people complain about their font/da movers, but we lack a lot of that specialized object-oriented software entirely. Installing fonts and devices, or re-assigning the system directories, is still a chore that I always do from the CLI, even though that always involves excessive typing. The batch files that come with distributions to install their special resources are _never_ appropriate for my setup, but an icon-based program for doing this could be made far more flexible (eg., should a font be copied to FONTS:, or should FONTS: be re-assigned to a certain directory? What should the mountlist entry for this device be named?). I know about the DirUtils and the CLImates. But it seems to me they all try to duplicate almost the exact same set of functions, while plenty of others remain unaddressed. John -- "If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drilling rights on George Bush's head." -- Jim Hightower of Texas
louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (11/08/88)
For an example on how to interface with the workbench environment, read my article "Working with the Workbench" in Volume 2, Number 2 of _Amazing Computing_. I described how I hacked an early version of MicroEMACS to function from the workbench; it would parse ToolTypes, and create icons for the files you edited. Starts on page 77. I can also mail the LaTeX source to this article to folks for personal use. ARPANET reachable mail addresses only, please. Louis A. Mamakos WA3YMH Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU University of Maryland, Computer Science Center - Systems Programming