Re: some consideration on NSWorkspace

[Dan Grillo]

Enrico Sersale writes:
 |
 |The recent changes in NSWorkspace don't let anymore GWorkspace to launch
 |applications with double-click on an icon, a fiend tile or a browser cell
 |that represents an application.
 |
 |Ths happens because the changes in NSWorkspace affect also
 |_launchApplication: that, before, accepted also a path as argument.
 |
 |Well, this wouldn't be a big problem because I could modify the
 |GWorkspace's methods where -launchApplication: is called to use the
 |application name instead of the path.
 |
 |But one case remains in which, this new beaviour, represents a problem;
 |if, for example, I've "myapp.app" in $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Applications and
 |also an "/home/enrico/myapp.app" and I want to launch *this* myapp.app
 |double-clicking on its icon, NSWorkspace will launch
 |$GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Applications/myapp.app anyway.
 |
 |I think that -launchApplication: should accept a full path to the
 |application, too.
 |Or, pherhaps a better solution, we could let - (BOOL) openFile:
 |(NSString*)fullPath (in this case we have specifically "fullPath" in the
 |method name) to launch an application if "fullPath" represents such an
 |object.

Allowing openFile: to take a full path would be more "unix like"
(think execing a sub process with a shell) and more intuitive.

Not sure how nextstep did this.  I'm pretty sure it took a full path.

 |An other thing: on openstep, if I give an "open /home/enrico", a new
 |viewer window, rooted at /home/enrico will appear. I think that -openFile:
 |should call the -application:openFile: method of the _workspaceApplication
 |(that I could easily implement in GWorkspace), if "fullPath" represents a
 |directory. Doing this, gopen would have the same behaviour...

This is one of my biggest GNUstep "user" wish list items.   I'd
love to see it work correctly.  The current behavior opens the directory
in an xterm in vi (not at all useful).

                        --Dan

--
  Dan Grillo   dan@grillo.net  (650) 917-0685  fax (775) 248-7762