weave@sun.acs.udel.edu (Ken Weaverling) (01/07/90)
OK, this is getting ridiculous. Mr. Siemon *does* have a point, he knows it, and nothing is going to change this. "TYPEing" a text file would take all of a 100 bytes or so of code to add to the Mac OS, but would blow its predictability. For example, if the Finder would add many "browser" modes to be used if the app wasn't found would cause confusion. Imagine a user: "I've seen the text, now I want to edit it, what do you mean I can't? Before I get into a useful discussion, we could "tit-for-tat" and I could scream about the multiple times I've accidently inserted an unformatted disk into a DOS machine and get "Read error, Abort, Fail, Retry" kind of error (real descriptive), and then have to hunt around for a DOS disk with FORMAT.COM on it, find one, and then have it say "Incorrect DOS version." OK, what does the Mac need? Let's have a useful discussion and maybe, just maybe, someone from Apple will say "Gee, neat idea" and implement it. 1) A command line window. Forget religous grounds against doing this. It'd be useful in A LOT OF cases. 2) A job language. PC users shouldn't scoff too much here, BATCH is horrible. Apparently Apple is working on some sort of Hypercard like language for system level stuff. Let's hope so. I should be able to have my Mac kick in Word at 03:00 and send that large file to the laserwriter without a hassle, or kick in a program to copy my Hard Drive to a server at 02:00, just before the server backs up to tape at 04:00. 3) Mail. For pete's sake, this should be an OS program. Forget Quick Mail, Microsoft Mail, etc. Make it standard and include it with the Mac's OS so everyone has it. That's the only way Email will be on everyone's desk. And gee, it'd be nice if it'd talk to other mail programs under other OS'es... 4) Drop the law suits about the User Interface. Remember what happened to Betamax? Now Sony is selling VHS. Will Apple be selling PC compatibles? 5) Forget forcing Multi-Finder in OS 7.0. I teach at a College part time and it's a major feat to teach people to do ONE thing at a time. Trying to explain to someone that "Program A is active, but not showing any windows, so it only "looks" like Program B is in the foreground" kind of crap is really difficult. As for MS/DOS, it's a relic. Every watch someone TYPE a spreadsheet? The file creator/type attributes on the Mac are great. It specifies what the file contains, and what program created it. It doesn't prohibit other applications from reading it. The closest thing DOS has is the file extension *.WK1 for instance. I administer systems running 3 different OSes (Unix, Primos, DOS), I use the Macintosh cause I prefer it, and I sometime dabble in CANDE on a UNISYS A series when someone points a gun at my head. Each OS has it's advantages and disadvantages. I do "serious" work on the Mac (documentation, spreadsheets, graphics, planning) cause I prefer to concentrate on my work, not on the blasted computer. I don't really *care* to be a PC power user, I just want to do my work. I use UNIX cause it has it all. I use DOS cause I have to. I need to administrate a few DOS lans. Thankfully, I have PC-Interface that turns my UNIX boxes into DOS file servers and I can actually call UNIX programs and scripts from my DOS batch files so I can get something useful out of the PCs. Primos on the Prime is fairly bullet-proof. I can basically forget it's there. It runs day/in day/out, has never crashed in the two 1/2 years we've had it, and it's simple to administrate and keep running. (Thank God) So, in summary, forget the silly flames and wars, and let's discuss how to improve Macs based on our collective knowledge of other systems and what we'd like to see, and not flame someone when s/he points out an area that needs to be addressed and not gloat when "Sys A beats Sys B cause it can munge this into that better..." -- Ken Weaverling - Systems Administrator | Internet: 00499@vax1.acs.udel.edu Delaware Technical & Community College | Voice: +1 302 573 5460
pete@titan.rice.edu (Pete Keleher) (01/08/90)
weave@sun.acs.udel.edu (Ken Weaverling) writes: > OK, what does the Mac need? Let's have a useful discussion and maybe, just > maybe, someone from Apple will say "Gee, neat idea" and implement it. > > 1) A command line window. Forget religous grounds against doing > this. It'd be useful in A LOT OF cases. > > 2) A job language. PC users shouldn't scoff too much here, BATCH is > ... Apple isn't unaware of this problem. Its precisely to make up for this sort of deficiency that MPW and the VERY powerful script language of SADE were created. Problem is, non-programmers as well as programmers who consider MPW a giant kludge (I admit I haven't used the newest version) are still out in the cold. A partial hack at a solution is on the way. Minix will be available RSN and will probably satisfy any UNIX user. It will run as an application and support the full generality of the csh, including regular expression matching, pipes, and a command language. Unfortunately, this still isn't what we want, because it's not an integrated part of the Mac OS. It is, however, probably as close to a solution as we'll ever get. -- Pete Keleher pete@titan.rice.edu
mliverig@Verity.COM (Mike Liveright) (01/08/90)
Agreed, we users can improve the Mac by sugesting that APPLE include software within their system that helps us. In this case, that of "reading" and editing TEXT files, I suggest another way, assuming that one is willing to purchase an add on product, "HANDOFF", (214) 727-2329 , to make this convienient is to: 1) Get a text editor, Ill call it TED, PD if needed, or consider using which ever editor you like, as we have been reminded, most/all mac editors will read and write text. 2) Active "HANDOFF", and then once, every time a new applications's TEXT only file is double clicked, tell HANDOFF that it should be read by the text editor, TED. From that time all such documents will be re-directed to the "TED". p.s. I have suggested that the authors make it possible to have all files of a type, "TEXT" to be re-directed to a program if the file's application doesnt exist, and they are "considering" it. Disclamer: I am not associated with anyone relevant and just am a user.
weave@sun.acs.udel.edu (Ken Weaverling) (01/08/90)
In article <PETE.90Jan7105131@titan.rice.edu> pete@titan.rice.edu (Pete Keleher) writes: > >weave@sun.acs.udel.edu (Ken Weaverling) writes: >> OK, what does the Mac need? Let's have a useful discussion and maybe, just >> maybe, someone from Apple will say "Gee, neat idea" and implement it. >> >> 1) A command line window. Forget religous grounds against doing >> this. It'd be useful in A LOT OF cases. >Apple isn't unaware of this problem. Its precisely to make up for this sort of >deficiency that MPW and the VERY powerful script language of SADE were created. >Problem is, non-programmers as well as programmers who consider MPW a giant >kludge (I admit I haven't used the newest version) are still out in the cold. OK, MPW is around, but not easy to invoke. If I want to merge two files together, I should be able to pop up a command line window, type in a cat command of some sort, and have it go. This IMHO would not violate the Mac UI cause it would be OPTIONAL, but for those who want it, it would be there. Great idea for a small app. It could be written, code from GNU utilities put into it for pattern matching, grepy and awkish kind of stuff, etc... (Which would guarantee it being free due to FSF copyleft notices :-) I'd love to do something like that myself, but who knows what direction Apple is going in... Back in 1985 I started writing a "language" to run multiple apps in a row (for chaining startup apps). It started growing in this direction, but I abandonded it cause of rumours of some great system language Apple was about to release that would turn non-programmers into programmers, etc... Turns out that this was Hypercard, and not this amazing thing that the press and Apple first hyped. (OK, it's neat, but not what *I* expected...) Apple seems to be promising some sort of scripting language, so perhaps something like a message window in Hypercard is coming. Then again, it's been coming for years now... OS/2 and Windows have ways of getting to a command line. Amiga has a CLI window. All of the neat graphic shells for UNIX have a way to get to a command line. Why not the Mac? -- Ken Weaverling - Systems Administrator | Internet: 00499@vax1.acs.udel.edu Delaware Technical & Community College | Voice: +1 302 573 5460
ADAM.FRIX@f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (ADAM FRIX) (01/09/90)
Ken Weaverling writes:
KW> If I want to merge two files together, I should be able to
KW> pop up a command line window, type in a cat command of some
KW> sort, and have it go. This IMHO would not violate the Mac UI
KW> cause it would be OPTIONAL, but for those who want it, it
KW> would be there.
Agreed! Give the people the power to be _their_ best. There are probably
a bazillion things going on in all sorts of programs that I don't know
about (Finder included), but they're there for people who want/need them
and they don't intrude on what I'm doing. I see nothing wrong with that.
--Adam--
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