mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (03/30/88)
In the April issue of MACworld, the macbulliten describes a method of using
the desktop manager from appleshare to replace the finders internal mechanism
for building the desktop. It is claimed to be MUCH faster ( using B-trees )
Will this be available in the next release of the system software?
I am tired of my 40mg. disk taking so long to rebuild the desktop.
Mark Interrante CIS Department
University of Florida
Internet: mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611
(904) 335-8051osmigo@ut-emx.UUCP (03/30/88)
In article <13791@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) writes: >It is claimed to be MUCH faster ( using B-trees ) > >Will this be available in the next release of the system software? >I am tired of my 40mg. disk taking so long to rebuild the desktop. It's supposed to be available from the Appleshare package, although I presume one doesn't have to purchase the whole thing to get Desktop Manager. The Mac World article certainly didn't imply it. At any rate, I used it for a while, and came up with two interesting results. 1. Rebuilding didn't seem much faster except maybe a second or two clipped off when returning to the Finder after quitting. Nothing breathtaking by any means. I'm running 38 megs on a 45 meg HD, Mac SE with 6.0/4.2, and no INIT/CDEV clutter other than Suitcase 1.2. 2. Desktop Manager does something in/with high memory. It kept me from booting up a major game program from a hard disk, giving a message reading, "There is a problem with the way memory is being allocated (27,910 high bytes used).." It's possible that improvements in rebuilding speed would be more apparent with larger storage setups, say, someplace with a couple hundred megs or something of that nature. In my case, I just trashed the thing. Didn't amount to a hill of beans. _______________________________________________________________________________ <||>---Ron Morgan---<||>-UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra,ut-sally}!emx!osmigo-<||||||||||> <||>-Univ. of Texas-<||>-------osmigo@emx.UUCP---------------------<||||||||||> <||>--Austin Texas--<||>-ARPA: osmigo@emx.utexas.edu---------------<||||||||||> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
msurlich@faui44.UUCP (Matthias Urlichs ) (04/05/88)
In article <13791@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) writes: >It is claimed to be MUCH faster ( using B-trees ) > >Will this be available in the next release of the system software? >I am tired of my 40mg. disk taking so long to rebuild the desktop. The Desktop manager greatly speeds up desktop rebuilds and updates. With my 80-MB Jasmine, it previously took two minutes to add an application to the HD, and about 10 to do a rebuild. Now it's down to two and 20 seconds. Also, if you have more than 1000+ icons total, the old Desktop file will get full. You will then experience the most astonishing crashes available on any Macintosh. (This problem is due to the fact that the Desktop file is a resource file; there's a technote explaining about this limit.) So if you want to keep a PD library on your big HD, and you don't have the Desktop Manager, don't copy all those programs with the Finder! The only problem is that under System 4.2, anything that isn't a floppy can't be dragged to the trash. I.e. Megafloppies, mounted tapes, etc. This should be easily fixable (by Apple). The Desktop Manager seems to work by patching a lot of resource calls checking if they try to get at any file named "Desktop" on anything that's not a floppy, and re-route them to its own files, called "Desktop DB" and "Desktop DF" (I think). I really like the Desktop Manager and I hope Apple puts it into the next System, so that we can forget about the slow Desktop. (I posted this information a while ago but no one seemed interested.) BTW, does anyone know how the Desktop Manager finds out about this "non-Floppy" stuff? -- Matthias Urlichs CompuServe: 72437,1357 Delphi: URLICHS Rainwiesenweg 9 8501 Schwaig 2 "Violence is the last refuge West Germany of the incompetent." -- Salvor Hardin
hallett@macbeth.steinmetz (Jeff A. Hallett) (04/08/88)
In article <242@faui10.UUCP> msurlich@faui10.UUCP (Matthias Urlichs) writes: > >I really like the Desktop Manager and I hope Apple puts it into the >next System, so that we can forget about the slow Desktop. What is the Desktop Manager? Is it part of the System or is it an INIT or what? If it is separate, how does one get a copy? Matthias indicated that he mentioned this previously, but I don't remember seeing it and I'm sure interested now. My Jasmine is slower than molasses in January about updating the desktop. Jeffrey A. Hallett | ARPA: hallett@ge-crd.arpa Software Technology Program | UUCP: desdemona!hallett@steinmetz.uucp GE Corporate Research and Development | (518) 387-5654 +--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Credo Quia Absurdum Est | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
gae@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) (04/08/88)
In article <10310@steinmetz.ge.com> desdemona!hallett@steinmetz.UUCP (Jeffrey A. Hallett) writes: >What is the Desktop Manager? Is it part of the System or is it an >INIT or what? If it is separate, how does one get a copy? Desktop Manager is an INIT that comes with AppleShare. But it works without AppleShare. My HD has over 30 Mb now, but the "Updating desktop" message is never there for more than 2 seconds. Now, would this be worth the cost of AppleShare to you??? -- Gerald A. Edgar TS1871@OHSTVMA.bitnet Department of Mathematics gae@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu The Ohio State University ...{akgua,gatech,ihnp4,ulysses}!cbosgd!osupyr!gae Columbus, OH 43210 70715,1324 CompuServe