jtn@ADS.COM (John Nelson) (06/04/90)
One of the most annoying things about the Mac is how it handles the opening of documents. If I 2-click on a document, this launches the appropriate application and all is fine with the world. Now I go back to the finder and 2-click on another document expecting this document to be opened also, but instead I get an alert box that says "Some documents could not be opened or printed." I think Lightspeed C does this although Write 4.0 does not. Is this something that I have to modify in the system/finder or in the apps themselves? Is there a generalized solution that will let me open arbitrary numbers of documents regardless of the application? This really defeats the entire notion of being able to just click on documents to opn them and I'm REALLY surprised Apple or the application developrs haven't done something about it. It's truly counter-intuitive. -- John T. Nelson -- The Conrail Locmotive / Harpsichord fusion project Advanced Decision Systems (703) 243-1611 UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com
d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) (06/04/90)
In article <GZ=$XK#@ads.com>, jtn@ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: > opening of documents. If I 2-click on a document, this launches the > appropriate application and all is fine with the world. Now I go back > to the finder and 2-click on another document expecting this document > to be opened also, but instead I get an alert box that says "Some > documents could not be opened or printed." > I think Lightspeed C does this although Write 4.0 does not. Is this > something that I have to modify in the system/finder or in the apps How this is implemented: When an app already is running, and you double-click another document, MF looks through the application's menus, and looks for "Open" kind of menu items (there are some defaults, and the application writer can supply appropriate suggestions for his app using special resources) MF then short-circuits the SFGetFile dialog (the "Open what file") to return the clicked document. Now, if you double-click on a project file in LSC, it won't open, because you can't have more than one project open at a time. I think Symantec made the decision that "the user'll always have a project open" so they didn't stick "Open Project" into the special resources. What's more annoying is that many developers rely on the "default" values for the menu text, and what happens when you translate the program to (for instance) swedish... right on, no auto-open :-( Jon W{tte, Stockholm, Sweden, h+@nada.kth.se
piggy@tubopal.UUCP (Piggysoft) (06/14/90)
In article <GZ=$XK#@ads.com> jtn@ADS.COM () writes: >One of the most annoying things about the Mac is how it handles the >opening of documents. If I 2-click on a document, this launches the >appropriate application and all is fine with the world. Now I go back >to the finder and 2-click on another document expecting this document >to be opened also, but instead I get an alert box that says "Some >documents could not be opened or printed." >-- >John T. Nelson -- The Conrail Locmotive / Harpsichord fusion project > >Advanced Decision Systems (703) 243-1611 >UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com From the systems point of view launching an application with documents is something completly different than opening a document 'into' a running app. In pre MF times this wasn't even possible, now MF tricks the application into thinking that the user selected the "Open..." menu item and then short sheets the call to the File Dialog to return the double-clicked file name. The same method is used to quit all running applications at "Shut down" time. The problem is that some apps do no have the standard menu entrys for "Open..." and "Quit". You can add 'mstr' resources to your application to help MF find ;-) the correct menu-items. Each of these resources contains a string (open with template 'STR ' in ResEdit). The ID's of the resources must be from the following list. 'mstr' (100) Quit-menu usually "File" 'mstr' (101) Quit-item usually "Quit" 'mstr' (102) Open-menu usually "File" 'mstr' (103) Open-item usually "Open..." You could add resources with this type and id's to match the Menu strings. -- fabian From the Desktop Metaphor of Fabian Hahn piggy@tub.bitnet piggy@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de ..!{pyramid,unido}!tub!piggy