rcbaem@rwc.urc.tue.nl (pooh 'Ernst' Mulder) (05/28/91)
In this article I would like to express my experiences with System 7 as
a Mac Plus user. Well actually my Mac is an upgraded Mac 128K which now
lists as follows.
4Mb of Ram
SCSI interface and a 20Mb Hard Disk
AppleTalk connection to my girlfriend's Mac Plus just across the room :)
Running System 7 installed for the Mac Plus.
Well, I _LOVE_ System 7, and probably never want to use an older system
again. But, of course, there are some things to complain about...
The Apple Menu:
On a Mac Plus the Apple Menu is slow. At the moment I've got 16 DA's
and 3 folder aliasses in my Apple Menu. The first 6 items behave
normally, but items further down in the menu select/scroll slower and
slower. Why is this? Wasn't it possible to build a list of the items
and icons and use that list when displaying the menu? (Instead of
recalculating every time the mouse moves over another menu item, which
it seems to do)
Apple Share and File/Application Sharing:
This works like a charm from System 7 to other systems. But my Mac
crashes when I copy an alias made on a mounted folder of my
girlfriend's Mac (not running System 7) and copy this alias to a folder
of myself. I'm using _allShare on my girlfriend's Mac and apparently
_allShare violates the AppleShare protocol at times. My question is how
can a protocol error on _another_ Mac crash MY Mac? It would be more
logical if it would complain in a less drastic way. :) I didn't install
System 7 on the other Mac because she has only 2Mb of memory.
Scrolling in Finder Windows:
It seems that scrolling only works when moving an item from the same
window. To replace On Cue I created a folder containing aliasses of all
mayor applications on my Hard Disk (i.e. I have a folder called
Utilities containing aliasses to Disinfectant, Resedit, etc... This
folder is called On Cue (sorry) and is shown by name with all outline
triangles pointing down) and when for instance the ResEdit icon is out
of view and I want to drop some file on ResEdit the aliasses folder
doesn't scroll...
The alias metafore:
At first my thought of aliasses was that they behaved _exactly_ as the
application (or whatever) that the alias stood for. This is not true.
When, for instance, I have MS Word in a folder together with it's
dictionaries and other supplementary documents and I make an alias to
MW Word and drop this alias in another folder and launch that alias, MS
Word will be able to find all its supplementary documents because you
actually boot MS Word itself. Although _very_ handy I think this is
conceptually wrong... What if I want to do the following. I've got a
word processor and two dictionaries. An English and a Dutch one for
example. To eliminate the hassle of having to switch dictionaries when
using the wordprocessor I put the wordprocessor in the directory
containing the first dictionary, and put an alias to the wordprocessor
in the directory containing the other dictionary. Would this work? I
haven't tried but I guess it wouldn't.
Miscellanea:
* Why is it still impossible to save a file under the name ".Sony" etc.?
* Why can't I turn the new (slow) way of file (re)naming off?
* Where can I adjust the Finder's grid size?
* Where can I put my DeskTop picture? (For now I still use BackDrop)
-----------------------------------------------------
Well, reading back the just written I think I have to repeat that I
really _love_ System 7!
-- PS -- New uses of the Finder ---------------------
The new Finder has many new possibilities. For instance:
The aliases window to replace On Cue, more details above.
I'm currently making overhead sheets and use the Finder as a sort-of
outliner. This looks something like this:
V # Sheets
V # 1. Introduction
% What is GNU CC
V # 2. Register Usage
% Figure 2.1 Sheet
% Figure 2.2 Sheet
V # 3. Register Classes
% Figure 3.1 Sheet
etc...
( V is down-pointing triangle; # = folder icon; % = document icon)
Greetings,
pooh
--
/*********************************************************************
* Everything stated above is absolutely true.
* Only the facts have been changed to protect the people involved.
***/bc@Apple.COM (bill coderre) (05/29/91)
In article <rcbaem.675440171@rwc.urc.tue.nl> rcbaem@urc.tue.nl writes: |Wasn't it possible to build a list of the items |and icons and use that list when displaying the menu? (Instead of |recalculating every time the mouse moves over another menu item, which |it seems to do) Unfortunately, that can't be done because of the way the Menu Manager works. The upside of this is that you always get a fully-up-to-date menu, not one that was created at reboot time. |* Why is it still impossible to save a file under the name ".Sony" etc.? That's a limitation of the Mac filesystem. There are certain other restrictions as well, such as a 32 character limit, and colons not being allowed in names. Please don't try to get around the limits, it really screws things up badly. bill coderre from his "responsibility to users" ps. Use Word's outliner. It's better.