Re: Text Files In MSIE (was: Flame Bait! Windows vs: The Unices)

From: Programmer Dude (Chris_at_Sonnack.com)
Date: 02/03/04 

Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 10:17:00 -0600

blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote:

[much snippage]

>> You could make something like the below available to your users as
>> a text file (with a .reg extension). On most user's systems, they
>> can just double-click it to "merge" it into the Registry. Users
>> who've changed the default action for .reg (as I have, for e.g.)
>> can just right-click and select "Merge".
>
> This is possible?! Good heavens. This is the point at which I
> might be tempted to say something snide about That Other Operating
> System, which seems to provide so very many ways for uninformed
> users (who are a large share of its target market) to get
> themselves in trouble.

And I might be tempted to reply, "rm -f /"[1] ?!?! (-:

[1] If that's not quite it, YKWIM. Hear the melody, not the words.

But all seriousness asnide, yes, it's possible. There's always
myriad ways to get one's self into trouble pretty much regardless
of the system. One might also consider the implications of a
simple shell script and an igorant user in a comfy X environment.
(The saving grace, of course, is that most unice users tend to be
more informed.)

>From a weblink point of view, if they try to run it, the user's
machine will pop up a strongly worded warning complete with a little
yellow warning icon (same as for .exe or .com or a few other types).
If they *still* do it despite that warning,... well, whattaya gonna
do? One hopes that anyone capable of saving, finding it on their
disk and then running it, is a little more savvy.

If not,... well, I'm rather a fan of "evolution in action."

> I'm going to have to think about whether to add this to my Web
> pages (risking people saying "YOU BROKE MY SYSTEM!" (*)), but it
> has been tucked away for future reference .....

I would recommend putting up only the information. The .reg file is
hard to get right for all possible users. If I were to put a .reg
file, I'd make it very simple and include very clear instructions on
how to tweak it before the fact (edit the .reg) or after (use the
Tools/Folder Options dialog...File Types tab).

> I had the impression that registry tweaking was somewhat risky.

If you don't know what you're doing, yes. The areas of concern here
are relatively benign and easily fixable. The standard advice is to
always back the thing up before doing something you don't fully
understand (not advice I typically follow myself, but then I've been
known to jump out of a "perfectly good" airplane :-).

> (The workaround I generally recommend to people who have this problem,
> by the way, is just to do a "save as" of the Java code and then open
> it with whatever program they use to work on Java source -- clumsy,
> but effective as far as I know.)

Which, I believe, brings us full circle (didn't I suggest that very
thing initially?). Personally, I'd always use my own tool for viewing
source (gvim)--I'm way too addicted to color syntax coding. (-: 

-- 
|_ CJSonnack <Chris@Sonnack.com> _____________| How's my programming? |
|_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL  |
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