wiseman@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US (Jeff Wiseman) (09/17/89)
I have several different types of documents that come and go from my system
(MacSE) frequently and I store many of them for long periods of time. I have
MacWriteII which will handle all of them (ie. Word, WriteNow, MacWrite, etc.).
I want to be able to double click on a document regardless of type or where it
is, and have my MacWriteII application start up and (after converting it)
present the document double clicked on.
-- I do not want to have to move the document into the MacWriteII folder in
order to "double select and open".
-- I do not want to have to use anything like On Que since I would spend all
of my time configuring it and changing its configuration (same for the
Launcher utility).
-- I do not want to change the type (or any other aspect) of the document
files that I am dealing with.
-- I do not want to spend $$$ for word processors just for the "read-only"
convenience of it all (or for that matter, the disk space required!
There can't be anything sadder than a disk-less Mac-hacker :-)
The closest I have come to a solution was to generate a copy of Launcher for
each document type's application (ie. one for Word, one for WriteNow, etc.) and
then using ResEdit, change the type of the Launcher application to match that
of the desired document's applications. Each copy of Launcher would then be set
to start MacWriteII. This was fine (ie. double click on a document anywhere
and MacWriteII would open) except that when MacWriteII opened, it had not
inherited the document that started it all. Instead it would have the generic
"Untitled" document.
QUESTIONS:
1) Is there any neat way that something like Launcher could be ResEdited to do
this?
2) Are there any nice public domain tools to do this
3) In the abscence of the above, is there any ideas other than the above.
Thanks in advance.
---
Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@tellabs.chi.il.us
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Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@tellabs.chi.il.usholland@m2.csc.ti.com (Fred Hollander) (09/18/89)
In article <1593@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> wiseman@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US (Jeff Wiseman) writes: I have several different types of documents that come and go from my system (MacSE) frequently and I store many of them for long periods of time. I have MacWriteII which will handle all of them (ie. Word, WriteNow, MacWrite, etc) I want to be able to double click on a document regardless of type or where it is, and have my MacWriteII application start up and (after converting it) present the document double clicked on. There is a commercial utility that will do exactly what you want (and more). It's called HandOff and I just posted a press release. In your case, you can redirect all those files from Word, WriteNow, MacWrite, etc. to MacWrite II. The first time you double-click on a document whose application you don't have, you'll be presented with a dialog to select a substitute. Select MacWrite II and your documents will automatically be opened by MacWrite II. In future encounters of the same kind of document (Word, MacWrite, etc.), you will not even see the dialog (unless you want to). It does this without changing any of you files. You can also redirect files by filename extension to any one of your applications. For example, you can double-click on ".txt" files to open MacWrite II. There's a control panel interface to configure HandOff, to remove substitutions and to add or remove filename mappings. For more information, call Software Innovations at 214/727-2329. DISCLAIMER: I wrote HandOff, and my company Software Innovations, is marketing HandOff. -Fred ______________________________________________________________________________ | Fred Hollander | | | Computer Science Center | "Ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ah what a day!" | | Texas Instruments, Inc. | -- Joker | | Internet: hollander@ti.com | | | Telnet: 214/995-0696 | The above statements are my own and not | | AppleLink: D1392 | representative of Texas Instruments. | ______________________________________________________________________________