schung@cory.Berkeley.EDU (08/07/87)
I too, find it very incovenient having to have MacWrite or MacPaint everytime I just want to look at the dump of a file. The problem gets worse when the file is just a plain text file, e.g. a note from one of the public domain programs. I'll have to wait for MacWrite to reformat(?) it and answer stupid questions, like whether I want to have line breaks or carriage returns. I know Mac people--not all of them--HATE UN*X and MSDOS, but I think it won't do any harm if we can have something like RASNIX--ever heard of it?--but more useful: able to change directories, excuse me, folders; and albe to "cat" a file in a zip, no matter what file. Just a simple "cat" that doesn't take much time to load, and doesn't have to bother with screen painting, etc. I don't know anything about MPW, and I am interested in the above features NOT from a programmer's point of view, but from a user's, cause I download lots of programs and hate swapping disks just to be able to read a note. I don't have a hard disk, that's pretty clear. Still, I usually have deep levels of directories, like: /downloaded/useful/da/binhexed/pited/doc (sorry for using the UN*X way of showing directories, but I can't really draw six folders inside one another.) Life would be much easier, for me, if I could just call up a DA and type "cat /downloaded/(...)/doc/note," instead of having to open six folders and do three disk swappings, or was it five? And having to put up with being interogated by MacWrite. Brrr..... Sure, I *love* the Mac, that's why I'm complaining anyway. Who said I don't have complaints about MSDOS and UN*X? sugih jamin (schung@cory.berkeley.edu)
eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding) (08/08/87)
In article <3220@zen.berkeley.edu> schung@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes: >I too, find it very incovenient having to have MacWrite or MacPaint everytime >I just want to look at the dump of a file. The problem gets worse when the >file is just a plain text file, e.g. a note from one of the public domain >programs. I'll have to wait for MacWrite to reformat(?) it and answer >stupid questions, like whether I want to have line breaks or carriage >returns. ....cause I download >lots of programs and hate swapping disks just to be able to read a note. >sugih jamin The solution I use is to have a small, dumb text editor on the same floppy as my terminal program (one was posted a few weeks ago called Public Domain Editor, I think). There is also a small application called "Showpaint" that will quickly display MacPaint documents that was posted a few months ago. Dumb editors are generally orders of magnitude faster than MacWrite for reading plain text files and do not ask any stupid questions, and there are many that are public domain. >I don't have a hard disk, that's pretty clear. Still, I usually have deep I don't either ;-( ++Eric Fielding Internet: fielding@geology.tn.cornell.edu BITNET: eric@CRNLTHRY
upl@puff.WISC.EDU (Future Unix Gurus) (08/08/87)
Regarding the "need" to have the Finder display Paint and text files:
There are a number of desk accessories around that will do this for you and
since they are DA's, they are available everywhere (not all of us use the
Finder much, anyway). Artisto is capable of displaying paint files, and there
is another DA out there (I can't remember the name) that will display PICT
files as well as paint. As far as displaying files of type TEXT, MockWrite
and miniWRITER both do a nice job of it, and are fairly inexpensive shareware
items. If you want to see a MacWrite (non-text) file, the View DA from TopDesk
will do the trick. If you complain about taking up valuable DA slots, then use
one of the shareware solutions (Double Apple or Other), one of the patch
methods for the Font/DA Mover, or the commercial Suitcase product. I agree
with something that Chuq once said - why add functions to a program that
already is cumbersome and has performace problems when there are inexpensive
third-party solutions that do the job and do it well?
Robert Hammen upl@puff.cs.wisc.edu {seismo,harvard,topaz}!spool!puff!upl
AppleLink: UG0122 Delphi: MADMACS GEnie: R.Hammenkorn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) (08/08/87)
In <3220@zen.berkeley.edu>, schung@cory.Berkeley.EDU said: >I too, find it very incovenient having to have MacWrite or MacPaint everytime >I just want to look at the dump of a file. The problem gets worse when the >file is just a plain text file, e.g. a note from one of the public domain >programs.... I have this problem also. I find that I often want to read one of the tech notes, or some documentation, or whatever, and being that I have a MacII, and I don't even have a copy of MacWrite 4.6.... well, you get the idea. Ideally what I would want to happen is this: I double-click on document foo, and automagically MS-Word (substitute your favorite word processor here) gets invoked, and opens (converting if necessary) the document. Now, the way finder info is set up, this won't happen. But I wonder, just what would be involved to make this little bit of magic work? As I see it, there are two levels of kludge necessary. On the one level, if foo is a text file, then all the finder has to do is look for something that can eat a text file (such as my word processor). On the second level, the finder would have to scan for a list of acceptable owners (MacWrite, TeachText, Edit, everyone else's source editor, etc.), and invoke the designated word processor/editor. Apple, or anyone: could this or something like it be done? There is no need, as far as I'm concerned, to have a 'viewer' built into the finder. In fact, oftentimes, I won't want to just view it, but also edit it. Peter "just a little wishful thinking" Korn -- Peter "Arrgh" Korn korn@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU {decvax,dual,hplabs,sdcsvax,ulysses}!ucbvax!korn
rubin@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mike Rubin) (08/12/87)
> Ideally what I would want to happen is this: I double-click on document foo, [which may be a MacWrite document, but you don't have MacWrite] > and automagically MS-Word (substitute your favorite word processor here) > gets invoked, and opens (converting if necessary) the document. Hmm... if you had two copies of MS-Word and the "creator" of one of them was altered to be MACA (i.e. MacWrite), the Finder would launch that when you doubleclicked on a MacWrite document. The only thing Apple has to do is put in symbolic links so that you don't have two physical copies of MS-Word sitting on your disk... Why has nobody mentioned in this discussion the various DA's for viewing text and MacPaint files? Or am I missing something?
drc@dbase.UUCP (Dennis Cohen) (08/13/87)
In article <20021@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, korn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) writes: > > Ideally what I would want to happen is this: I double-click on document foo, > and automagically MS-Word (substitute your favorite word processor here) > gets invoked, and opens (converting if necessary) the document. > > Now, the way finder info is set up, this won't happen. But I wonder, just > what would be involved to make this little bit of magic work? As I see it, > there are two levels of kludge necessary. On the one level, if foo is a > text file, then all the finder has to do is look for something that can > eat a text file (such as my word processor). On the second level, the finder > would have to scan for a list of acceptable owners (MacWrite, TeachText, > Edit, everyone else's source editor, etc.), and invoke the designated word > processor/editor. > > Apple, or anyone: could this or something like it be done? There is no need, > as far as I'm concerned, to have a 'viewer' built into the finder. In fact, > oftentimes, I won't want to just view it, but also edit it. There is another kludge available, one that I have been using since I wrote it for another party who asked this question. It is a very short piece of code (I wrote it in MDS assembler and TML) which is very special purpose. It involves taking the FREF, BNDL, and ICN# resources from the missing application, and Rezing them into an application which consists merely of a launch command to the one you really want. This passes along the Finder information from the original launch. I have one so that if I double-click a Write document on my II or Prodigy, it launches MindWrite; others that launch SuperPaint if I launch a MacPaint or FullPaint file. Reply to me, if enough people want, I will upload the source for one of them to this forum (it's fairly short). Dennis Cohen Ashton-Tate Glendale Development Center dBASE Mac Development Team
steele@unc.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele) (08/16/87)
In article <20021@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, korn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) writes: } } Ideally what I would want to happen is this: I double-click on document foo, } and automagically MS-Word (substitute your favorite word processor here) } gets invoked, and opens (converting if necessary) the document. drc@dbase.UUCP (Dennis Cohen) writes: >There is another kludge available, one that I have been using since I wrote it >for another party who asked this question. It is a very short piece of code >(I wrote it in MDS assembler and TML) which is very special purpose. It >involves taking the FREF, BNDL, and ICN# resources from the missing >application, and Rezing them into an application which consists merely of a >launch command to the one you really want. Putting an extra entry in the 'APPL' resource in the "Desktop" file does this. For instance, to set up a disk that you expect to have text files with a MacWrite creator (like those created by Smalltalk and many terminal programs and) that you want to edit with MDSEdit instead of MacWrite, find an entry for <'EDIT',"MDS Edit",n> and add one for <'MACA',"MDS Edit",n>. My other major use for this is getting Unpit to open both applications created by itself and those created by whatever the commercial pitter is. } Now, the way finder info is set up, this won't happen. But I wonder, just } what would be involved to make this little bit of magic work? As I see it, } there are two levels of kludge necessary. On the one level, if foo is a } text file, then all the finder has to do is look for something that can } eat a text file (such as my word processor). On the second level, the finder } would have to scan for a list of acceptable owners (MacWrite, TeachText, } Edit, everyone else's source editor, etc.), and invoke the designated word } processor/editor. Unfortunately, hacking the APPL doesn't do either of these, since the Finder looks at a document's creator instead of its type. One problem is the ambiguity: do you want Lightspeed C or one of the text editors to be invoked upon text-only files created by Lightspeed C? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oliver Steele ...!{decvax,ihnp4}!mcnc!unc!steele steele%unc@mcnc.org " "