On 10/5/05 11:14 PM, "Lars Schou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 10/5/05 10:36 PM, "Barry Wainwright" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Paul has already posted the answer to this question, but I am intrigued - >> why on earth would they want to put their MUD folder in ~/Library? > > That's where Apple Mail stores its files. I'm not saying this automatically > makes it a better choice for Entourage, but since many users will rarely (if > ever) access the MUD folder through the Finder, I don't see a compelling > reason for why it has to be in ~/Documents. Moreover, I've actually had > users call me after they tossed the MUD folder during a clear-out so a > little 'security through obscurity' might not be a bad idea. You may recall that virtually all apps kept their support files and documents inside their own application folders back in OS 8. That was a stupid place, since updating the app with a new version could mean you'd lose all data. Outlook Express was the first major app to create a safe place for its data, with OE 5 that came out just after OS 9. There was no /Library, ~/Library, or any other */Library then. There was, however, a "blessed" (with icon) Documents folder, and that seemed a good place for data. Thus that's where the MUD folder, with its Identities folder, went. A year later, when Entourage 2001 (the first version) was released, its data went into the same place - with its own Office 2001 Identities folder. Palm, Adobe, and other major apps followed Microsoft's lead with data folders in the Documents folder. When OS X was released a year after that, most people still used Entourage 2001 in Classic at first. For OS 10.0 and 10.1, that meant the location for data still had to be the MUD folder in /Documents on the root. It was only natural for Entourage X to use ~/Documents in the user folder. Again, Palm and others mostly followed suit. Once that was set, later upgrades (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Entourage 2004) used the same location - and APPLE declared that ~/Documents was the right place for Entourage 2001's MUD (same one as X's) in Classic in Jaguar and later. It may well be that the preponderance of the MUD's files cold be seen as "support" files that should now be in ~/Library/Application Support/, rather than ~/Documents. Apple didn't create an Application Support subfolder until OS X. It could also be argued that most of the files in the NUD, including the identity databases but maybe excluding scripts, really are documents: Entourage messages, contacts, events, tasks, etc. may be stored in its own database but they really are documents every bit as much as a Word document. nevertheless, I'd expect that sooner or later, a new major version of office might move some or all of the MUD to ~/Library/Application Support/. In the meantime, ~/Documents/ is the right location. If people insist on being stupid, I suppose there's not a great deal you can do about it. Surely opening Entourage to a totally blank identity might be a salutary incentive to leaving things where they should be? Or at least making a 1K (or is it 0K?) alias file in the correct location. Do these same people also try to move stuff they "don't need" from /System because they use to do that in OS 7, and they badly need the space on their 160 GB hard drives? Just teach them to leave things where the installers put them and where they belong, no? -- Paul Berkowitz MVP MacOffice Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html> AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/> PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using - **2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise. -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
