Re: File Useability question

[Pascal J . Bourguignon]

Uli Kusterer writes:
> In article <mailman.250.1077387488.340.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
>  Enrico Sersale <enrico@imago.ro> wrote:
> 
> > For this you need an editor for the file type.
> > Probably, "File->New File" is a mistake; simply, it should not be
> > there. I've  added it because I work mainly with text files; for
> > me, "File->New File"  represents a usefull feature, because with a
> > command N and a double click I  get the new file opened with the
> > nedit wrapper in the right directory.  But I've not considered the
> > users...
> 
> Just an idea: Why don't you expand upon it and make it work? E.g., you 
> could make this a way to create files from a template. Have a directory 
> somewhere in which people can put files. Then give File->New File a 
> submenu listing all the files in that directory. When the user picks one 
> of these files, it copies the template to where it would have created 
> the text file (unique-ifying the file name if there is already a file of 
> that name).
> 
> You could have the same functionality that is there now by simply 
> putting a .txt file into this templates directory. And you could list 
> the file names alphabetically and give the topmost one Command-N.
> 
> Or you could implement the same thing, but instead of a submenu, display 
> a window with a list from which the user can choose the template to copy.

Yes. That's the idea of  templates or stationary that existed in Apple
Lisa, and re-introduced  later on MacOS, where a  file attribute could
be set such  as when opening the file, a copy  was made before working
on the new document.

Each  application   would  have  to   provide  a  number   of  default
"stationaries"  (via  a  protocol  between the  applications  and  the
workspace manager, perhaps just an  entry in the application plist and
a file/filepackage  in the resources directory of  the application) to
have  it work  like on  Lisa, or  the user  would have  to explicitely
create  documents (in the  application, not  in the  workspace manager
that cannot possibly know how  to create any document file!), and mark
them as "stationary" in the save  dialog or from the Info panel of the
workspace manager.


(In any case, creating a new  empty file from the workspace manager is
not a  good idea,  clearly, this is  some debugging stuff  that should
disappear promptly).

-- 
__Pascal_Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he doesn't
want merely because you think it would be good for him.--Robert Heinlein
http://www.theadvocates.org/