Re: Fully encapsulated executable files with support...

[Christopher Curtis <ccurtis ee fit edu>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Felix Bellaby wrote:

> diff x/ y/ | mail fred
[...]
> Imagine instead that you select both files in the file manager, select
> diff from the right click menu (holding down a key to indicate piped
> output) and then select mail from the same menu. Or, alternatively, you 
> select diff then drag and drop the pipe onto an icon of fred.

I've thought about this a little bit as well ... this is something that I
tried to get a shareware author to do under OS/2, actually ... it's kinda
like Java Studio.  This is a *lot* or work, but imagine:

You have an icon called "diff".  It has two input "pipes" and one output
"pipe".  If you drag a file onto it, one pipe end turns red and is maybe
labeled "x/".  Then you drag "y/" onto it and the other pipe turns red,
and the output pipe starts flashing green.  Selecting the green light
would bring up a menu or someting giving you the option to save as a file,
append to a file, view, or pipe to another program.  If you select pipe
the cursor changes or a new icon appears, and this can then be dropped
onto a "mail" icon, or dropped into a mail application as an attachment.
Right clicking the icon would bring up the properties for "diff".

I personally don't know that this would be much easier than using a
commandline, but aren't we trying to get rid of that darned thing or
something anyway?

--
Christopher Curtis               - http://www.ee.fit.edu/users/ccurtis
                                 - System Administrator, Programmer
Melbourne, Florida  USA          - http://www.lp.org/