Re: Shortcuts ??

["Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn" <xkahn cybersites com>]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Ryoga no baka wrote:

> > 	How is this different from symbolic links?  From what I've seen,
> > symbolic links are more powerful than Windows style .lnk files....  But
> > then again, maybe I'm just biased.

> A symbolic link can't contain much information about what it's linked to.
> The advantage of a .kdelnk is its ability to give extra information about
> what it is describing, such as parameters which may be passed, or file
> types it may be associated with.  It's really quite useful, and serves a
> rather different purpose than the symbolic link.

	Okay...  I can see that both as an advantage, and a disadvantage. 
Each symlink has the following information already: permissions, (which
can be different from the original file) owner, group, and name.  Don't
underestimate the power of the name of the symbolic link!  As an example,
try this:

	$ ln -s /usr/bin/rlogin ./some.host.name 
	$ ./some.host.name

	See?  It rlogin'd to that hostname!  The name is quite powerful.
Then you have all the information just from the original file.  

	Okay.  So what other information do you want?  File type...  And
parameters?  Umm...  I'm not sure about the parameters.  What exactly do
you mean?  Are you talking about .pif files in windows?  As for file
types...  Well, UNIX has the (slightly broken now) 'file' program.  I'm
sure it could be updated.  The file type system needs to be system wide.
I should be able to specify that all .gif files are opened by xv.  The
user can override this of course...  On an account by account basis, or
file by file, directory, by directory...  How do you reconcile that with
individual links?  If you aquired a great new program, how do you update
ALL those files you set before?

						-Ben

------------------------------------ |\      _,,,--,,_  ,) ----------
Benjamin Kahn                        /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
(212) 924 - 2220                    |,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\
ben@cybersites.com --------------- '---''(_/--' (_/-' ---------------
 If you love something, write it in C; if it compiles, it is yours; 
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