On 1/5/08 6:12 AM, "Chris Page" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>> (b) the Finder is unreliable
> 
> I'd really appreciate it if you could elaborate.

I've had three main problems: users doing stuff in the Finder that involves
dialogs, bringing scripts to a halt (understandable perhaps); the Finder not
seeing files, presumably because of a lag in updating; and intermittent
problems with errors saying that the process can't continue because a dialog
is showing. It seems the dialog in question is one that the Finder sometimes
throws up when it gets busy doing a whole lot of stuff, telling you it's
busy doing a whole lot of stuff.

It seems fine if you're not doing much, but if you try something like
deleting lots of files in a loop (one typical case involved something like
write tagged text file, import into InDesign, delete file, repeat, etc) it
seems to run into problems.

The simple truth is that moving to do shell script eliminates problems, as
Jon's Commands did in the old days. I can understand why some of the
problems occur with the Finder, and I understand that scripting is a low
priority to the Finder team, but to me the answer is to put basic commands
like deleting, moving, copying, etc somewhere that avoids the potential for
these sorts of problems. They're just too important.
> 
>> (c) System Events is too fussy about what it does and doesn't
>> accept, depending on the OS
>> version.
> 
> 
> Do you mean in terms of aliases vs. file descriptors vs. file objects?
> 
> Is this mostly about what it will currently accept or about the fact
> that older system versions don't support some of the newer stuff?

Partly -- people shouldn't have to re-learn how to move a file each OS
upgrade. And there are still oddities; I can't remember the details, but I
think something like a copy will now accept an alias but not for the target
folder. Stuff like that results in lots of infuriating trial and error.
Combine it with the fact that it can take a fair amount of time to start up
and seems sometimes to go walkabout for several seconds, and it's another
poor choice. (It also makes me nervous when I see a dictionary with so many
things in it that just don't work. It says things about the priority it
has.)

-- 
Shane Stanley <[log in to unmask]>