Re: Fully encapsulated executable files with support...

[Christopher Curtis <ccurtis ee fit edu>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998 charles.j.hagenbuch@williams.edu wrote:

> Quoting Christopher Curtis <ccurtis@ee.fit.edu>:
> 
> > 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,

I think we have the same basic idea ... I was just playing with Java
Studio so I had that in mind.  Remember that this is a *lot* of work.

Anyhow, what I think is basically needed is some sort of feedback
mechanism so the user knows how many arguments are needed (2 in the case
of diff, one in the case of convert (minumum)).  Then a method of
selecting options (I chose right click->properties, but a popup may be
better as that allows additional files to be dropped and an easy "do it"
selection).  Finally a method of dealing with the output.  Remember that
some programs (tee, convert) [can] generate multiple output streams and
these need to be accounted for.  Maybe something like a "pipe palette"
where interim data can be manipulated - often times this can just be a
file in /tmp for instance.  Doing this right, I think, could be very
difficult, and I don't have time to think about something else.  =)

> If you want to save it as a file, you drag it to a filemanager window. It
> appears there with a blank name, waiting for you to type the name and hit
> return - once you do, it's saved in that directory.

Appending?

> I think one of the important things in my example is that the cursor doesn't
> change - you are never forced to continue operating on a file. I think this

I'll agree.

> inputs better (how would you pipe 100 files to convert and then all to a
> program that made each image a frame in an animation, in one step, on the
> command line).

I don't know, I've never dealt with anything like that, but I'll bet that
given:

images/
 image1.jpg
 image2.jpg
 image3.jpg [...]

You could do:

convert images/*.jpg -format gif /tmp ; whirlgif /tmp/*.gif -o anim.gif

Actually, ImageMagick has a program 'animate', doesn't it?  Could use
that, I bet. 

But your point is taken.

> Please let me know if I was unclear in any way - I think it would be *very*
> useful, not to mention damn cool, to have a desktop that worked this way.

Very difficult to implement nicely, and very time consuming to code every
single cli app out there.  Think: make->gcc->ld

Could be very useful for a limited subset though.

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