On 15.03.2010, at 18:42, Kino wrote:

> Personally I never put anything important in the Desktop folder and  
> it stores only temporary things, e.g. an image file to be uploaded.

It's the same here. I usually never keep anything on the Desktop  
except a few Aliases for drag and drop (such as RAR Expander). The  
danger of accidentally selecting a wrong folder or file and moving it  
to the trash is too big. Actually – to be precise – I have completely  
stopped moving anything to the trash with the mouse, I use Command +  
Delete instead which is easier and faster.

Thanks for the modification of the macro.

>> Unfortunately the Nisus Macro Reference file does not contain  
>> enough examples to help the novice and illustrate how to use the  
>> commands. It's mostly pure grammar, which can be very frustrating  
>> for the beginner.
>
> I agree with you.

'Nisus Macro Reference' is little more than a long list of  
"grammatical" rules. What Nisus Software does is pretty much the same  
as if I – as a language teacher – would give you two books: a  
dictionary and a grammar of the Russian language, and then say: Here  
you have everything you need, now write a nice, exciting novel for me  
in Russian.

I wish Nisus Soft would take Danny Goodman (The Complete HyperCard  
2.0 Handbook) as a model. On the front page of that book there is a  
small quotation from MacUser saying: "A masterpiece of a book." And  
indeed, I agree with that. What makes Danny Goodman's book so  
interesting for all writers and software developers is that his many  
examples are *useful* and easy to understand and they were not  
primarily written for mathematicians, computer geeks or people who  
have unlimited time. The exact opposite – regarding HyperCard – is  
the old Claris HyperCard Script Language Guide, a book of 583 sites,  
replete with formulas and syntax, but no practical examples. Great  
book for HyperCard experts who need to check the syntax (I used it a  
lot for this purpose), but for the beginner it is a riddle wrapped up  
in an enigma. I wish Nisus would follow Danny Goodman.


>
>> But considering the fact that this was a major catastrophe for me  
>> I would say that this should not have been able to happen.  (...)
> But the same thing occurs with any script language when you write a  
> file to a wrong path. Something much worse may happen because,  
> unlike NWP macros, you can run such a script as root.

Good that you remind me of that.

The annual Kino festival in Berlin is now over. This time it was the  
Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima who received the award as best  
female actress for her role in the film “Caterpillar” (directed by  
Koji Wakamatsu.)


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