[comp.sys.mac.system] Default folder for file dialogs

ashwin@gatech.edu (Ashwin Ram) (06/07/91)

Most applications select their own folders as the default folder for file
dialogs.  (For example, if you launch Microsoft Word, the first Open or Save
opens a dialog which starts out in the folder that the Microsoft Word
application resides in.)  Usually, that's not what I want; I want the default
folder to be the one I was just "in".  (For example, if I'm doing accounts in
my Accounts folder, I probably want to Open or Save a file in that folder.)
Even defaulting to the top level folder on that drive would be better, since
I almost never want to save my document files in the same folder that my
applications live in.  Another possibility would be to default to the last
folder that was used in a file dialog.  But ideally, it should be the last
folder that was "active".  (Actually, ideally this behavior should probably
be configurable since I suppose different users have different tastes.)

Some applications already do this, but most don't.  Is there a (hopefully
free!) utility that will fix this behavior across all applications?  Or is
this something that is hardwired into these applications (seems like a weird
user interface design decision if this is true).

Thanks,

-- Ashwin.