NSTableColumn 101 Questions

Gregory Weston wrote:

> noreply DeleteThis @mail.invalid (Patrick Machielse) wrote:
>
> > I'm still waiting for NSFile or NSAlias, but I guess round rects were
> > _soooo_ much more important this time around Darn Steve Jobs!
>
> What would you want them to do? There may already be something in Cocoa
> that handles what you expect of NSFile, and there's a 3rd-party class
> called NDAlias floating around.
>
> <http://homepage.mac.com/nathan_day/pages/source.xml>

Yes, I know it (and I've used it), but I would expect something so
fundamental to be part of the framework. Especially since everybody is
using NDAlias now. I think there's a lot of extra functionality that
could be added too, f.i. integrating with kqueue notifications, which I
don't think NDAlias does at the moment.

> For what it's worth, working with aliases and files is, IMO, much easier
> than getting roundrects "right."

I realize that can become a religious discussion for some people

While working with files _might_ be easier than drawing the 'right'
radius (because it doesn't involve 'taste'), handling files is also
_much more important_ to get right every time. A uniform and sanctioned
way of handling files in Cocoa would be a welcome addition, IMO.

Not that I'm not happy with round rects and gradients!

patrick

In article ,
noreply.TakeThisOut@mail.invalid (Patrick Machielse) wrote:

> Gregory Weston wrote:
>
> > noreply.TakeThisOut@mail.invalid (Patrick Machielse) wrote:
> >
> > > I'm still waiting for NSFile or NSAlias, but I guess round rects were
> > > _soooo_ much more important this time around Darn Steve Jobs!
> >
> > What would you want them to do? There may already be something in Cocoa
> > that handles what you expect of NSFile, and there's a 3rd-party class
> > called NDAlias floating around.
> >
> > <http://homepage.mac.com/nathan_day/pages/source.xml>
>
> Yes, I know it (and I've used it), but I would expect something so
> fundamental to be part of the framework. Especially since everybody is
> using NDAlias now.

Not me, actually. I rolled my own solution for getting handles in and
out of NSData so they can be stored in the defaults DB, but I really
never considered the procedural API for aliases to be onerous enough to
need a "simpler" method, and I don't have a need for every last thing to
have a message-send interface available.

> I think there's a lot of extra functionality that
> could be added too, f.i. integrating with kqueue notifications, which I
> don't think NDAlias does at the moment.
>
> > For what it's worth, working with aliases and files is, IMO, much easier
> > than getting roundrects "right."
>
> I realize that can become a religious discussion for some people
>
> While working with files _might_ be easier than drawing the 'right'
> radius (because it doesn't involve 'taste'),

Not so much "taste" as consistency. Small differences can be far more
jarring than great whopping changes; they seem to be sort of harder to
acknowledge and move past precisely because they're just the little
fiddly bits around the edges (sometimes literally).

> handling files is also
> _much more important_ to get right every time. A uniform and sanctioned
> way of handling files in Cocoa would be a welcome addition, IMO.

That's sort of why I asked what you would want a putative NSFile to do.
It may already be in there and you've just missed it.