Re: The one pronoun problem

blmblm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 
In article <MPG.1d31afb165a94eaa989a42@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Chris Smith  <cdsmith@xxxxxxx> wrote:

<blmblm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Sounds very useful if one is writing Java code to run under Windows,
but I was asking more in reference to using existing applications
(e.g., MS Office).  I'm guessing that some of them do have some notion
of "current directory" that can maybe be changed via a command-line
parameter, but the whole notion of "current directory" seems to be
sort of alien to the GUI way of doing things.  IMO, of course.

Nevertheless, the current directory does exist in Windows. You don't generally change it with a command line parameter. Every Windows application shortcut has a property for what directory it starts in. Whether the application uses the current working directory for anything or not is up to that application. 


I feel like we're not speaking quite the same language here.  What I
mean by "current directory" is what you're likely to get with the
typical text-based Unix program launched from a command shell --
it can be different every time the program runs, and it's the basis
for specifying relative pathnames for the user's files.  This is the
concept I find lacking in most GUIs, independent of operating system
(and I'm wondering whether it's because it's really not there, or
it's there and I just don't know how to get at it).

In contrast to this thing I'm calling "current directory", one
of these text-based programs might also have some notion of a home
directory (for itself), where it would find, oh, help files and such.
This directory would be the same for every invocation of the program.
It sounds like what you're calling the "current directory" for a
Windows application is more like this thing I'm calling "home directory
for itself" -- the same every time you launch the program, and hence
not so useful (IMO) as a starting point for relative pathnames for the user's files.

But maybe I'm still not getting it?


Windows does have the concept of a current directory. When it comes to invoking shortcuts, the current directory of the process is set by the shortcut. (That way you could set it to a useful place -- otherwise it would be hardcoded and useless.) However, most Windows programs when displaying a file chooser dialog, will start with the user's home directory, the C:\ directory or My Computer. That is an issue with the specific application, not the OS.

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.
.

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