On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Jan Martin wrote:
> Hi all, > > I was irritated by the annoying "Verifying Archive" window that always > opens when I try to run a .shy file on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Linux. It's not reassuring that it checks? Should it cache the checksum and modification times of the archive so it knows it has checked already? Would such a cache be an invasion of privacy in some form? What is your expectation about this? I'm not saying you are wrong, because challenges to current practice are how things improve. Anyway, it's not me designing this stuff, so I can't have any strong influence on what happens, but if I can help make the debate more specific, that may be useful. > > So I created a "runshoes.sh" file with these 2 lines: > > #!/bin/sh > /home/me/Programs/shoes2.run --nox11 $1 > > After changing the "Open With" in the "Preferences" of the .shy file, > all .shy files do now open directly without the annoying "Verifying > Archive" window. > > I wonder if the "--nox11" parameter could be made a default? Alternatively, maybe it could only pop up a window if there is a problem. "About Face" by Alan Cooper, and presumably About Face 2.0 which I've not read, argues that software should not trouble users with details they frankly don't care about. [See also, "My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, for a similar take on this in a more general context :-).] His take on things involves a lot more effort by the programmer, and may conflict with advice about dying as soon as possible when there is a problem so that less damage is done by having an idiot machine trying to figure out what is wrong, and "correcting" it mindlessly. > > Also I noticed that most shoes apps at the shoebox end in .rb > > This probably is because right now shoes is used by programmers only, > who already have ruby installed. However it stops further success of > shoes, which would be a pity. It has disadvantages, but it is so that editors syntax highlight correctly, for one thing. I think the extension .shu could be used for the ruby programs that are shoes specific and not archives without causing too much trouble, given fixes to editor configuration files to detect this. > > I would like shoes to run OS independent ruby "programs". Which Some of the inheritance aspects may prevent this, but I'm not entirely sure, hence all the difficulties of getting gems to work. > unfortunately right now is not what we have because executing .shy > file is totally different from handling all other executables. (Cannot But .shy is meant as an archive, isn't it? A better parallel is executing a .zip file. Some programs do that, eg, Alice http://www.alice.org/ though Alice uses the extension .a2w for that. > talk about Windows, cause I do not have Windows installed anymore.) > > Does the development go into a direction that is more common, means > "What people already know"? I'm not sure what you mean by that sentence. Do you mean, "is that already planned?"? How would "what people already know" apply here, given the comments about archives above (if you think those comments are valid)? > > Thanks, > Jan > Hugh
