file attributes

[Scott Simpers]

In article <1991Jun20.085530.24353 at prl.dec.com> boyd at prl.dec.com (Boyd Roberts) writes:
>In article <1743 at sranha.sra.co.jp>, erik at sra.co.jp (Erik M. van der Poel) writes:
>> On the Macintosh, it is possible to double click on the icon that
>> represents a file to invoke the application associated with that file.
>> It is difficult to build a GUI (graphical user interface) to do the
>> same for Unix systems, since Unix does not offer a standard way of
>> attaching an application name to a file.
>> 
>
>Uh...
>
>Haven't you seen SCO's Open Desktop?  It does just this, but without (I hope) 
>any gruesome kernel hacks.  The last thing we need is more system calls.
>
>
>Boyd Roberts			boyd at prl.dec.com
>
>``When the going gets wierd, the weird turn pro...''

I hate to disappoint folks, but SCO's open desktop is really IXI's X.desktop.
It and Looking Glass both provide UNIX GUI's which do what you want. There's
absolutely nothing wrong with checking magic numbers, etc. to find out the
type of a file.  I believe X.desktop does this on the fly.

Looking Glass, on the other hand, uses the previously mentioned ".desktop"
method by creating a .lgdb file in each directory it visits.  This contains
info on all the files in the directory.  So, if you have an eXclaim! 
worksheet, you can double click on the icon representing the file, and it
will run eXclaim! on that file.  Same thing for Frame Maker.

So, please, no kernel hacks and no "smart files".  The problem has already
been solved in 2 fairly reasonable ways.

-- 
Scott Simpers                         | All my opinions are my own, nobody else
Quality Software Products             | wants them!
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