On Thursday, April 25, 2002, at 01:51 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: >> But you all are claiming that it's really weird that >> Macintoshes don't have have the same mechanism to determine >> "Applications" and "Documents" folders. Given the choice of >> built-in PostScript and a Control Panel to select the location >> of those folders, I know which I'd rather have.
> I didn't say that it was weird. I speculated that it was likely > that the Mac OS *did* make it a user configurable option, and I > understood from all the previous messages answering mine that > there was no such capability. You now say it *is* user > configurable, and I don't know whether we've miscommunicated or > if all the others were wrong. I hope the following clears things up. * MacOS categorization the way I describe it: MacOS (Traditional) usually labeled "System 6", "System 7", etc. MacOS (Classic) starts about System version 7.5.5 and labeled "MacOS" MacOS X * Traditional MacOS did not have designated "Applications" or "Documents" folders. There is no such concept. Totally irrelevant to Mac users. If a Mac user did want to set up her folder hierarchy that way and install applications in an Applications folder and save documents in a Documents folder, that's her business. It's her machine and she can configure it just about anyway she likes. MacOS Classic represents a transitional phase where adaptions are made to accommodate for the impending changeover to a Unix-based MacOS X. It's impossible for already released software to change its behavior to adapt to setup recommendations of a newer system. In addition, because many Macintosh applications can run on legacy systems, even current releases may not opt to install in an Applications folder because there is no such designated folder on the older systems. So it doesn't make any sense to offer a user Control Panel items to re-assign such folders. An advanced user could do this by a somewhat sneaky use of Aliases (which concept I believe M$ stole from System 7 and developed into what are now "shortcuts" on Windows). What does make sense is to have a virgin MacOS (Classic) install create those folders as a suggestion to users to become accustomed to the way things will be initially setup in the future. On MacOS X, it is possible to re-assign the locations of designated folders by Unix calls. There may be some utilities similar to TinkerTool which provide a UI to the Unix calls for this but I haven't checked. In addition, I should point out that at least half of the OS X installers I've used (including AppleWorks) offer me a choice of where to install. For the iTunes product that was mentioned previously and AppleWorks, it is a known fact that they hard-wire some of their their support files or output files to the user's Documents folder contrary to HIG. I suspect that Apple most likely had some ex-NeXT engineer port them to Cocoa Framework based apps for OS X because that would have been the quickest. But it's a known fact that many NeXT programmers who came to Apple as a result of the merger don't know dick about the way traditional MacOS users expect things to behave. Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
