Re: Script Editor hangs on "Open Dictionary"
Re: Script Editor hangs on "Open Dictionary"
- Subject: Re: Script Editor hangs on "Open Dictionary"
- From: "Gary (Lists)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 23:28:35 -0400
"Bill Briggs" wrote:
> At 2:20 PM -0700 5/14/05, Andrew Oliver wrote:
>> On 5/14/05 2:09 PM, "Rob Lewis" <email@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>> Whenever I select the command "Open Dictionary" in Script Editor 2.0,
>>> the program hangs with a spinning beach ball and I have to force quit
>>> it. Any clue what this is about?
>>
>> IMHO the 'Open Dictionary' is so FUBAR'd, it's not funny. It can
>> take an age to find all the applications on your machine. I'd much
>> rather they gave you a regular Open File dialog and let you navigate
>> to the app you wanted. It's not like there's any advantage to the
>> current implementation - it still shows every app whether or not
>> that app has a dictionary, which would be about the only advantage I
>> can think of.
>
> I also think it's FUBAR. I complained to Mark Aldritt about this in
> Script Debugger and he's ditching it in the next release. It's one of
> those things that sounds like a good idea, but in the implementation
> it sucks. Much better would be the combination of a list of
> "favourite" applications you could specify, and a normal open dialog
> for anything that you didn't have in the list. The current
> implementation is just stupid. With a boatload of script applications
> on this Mac it just takes forever to open and scroll. Not well
> thought out at all.
Okay, Smile seems to get it better than it used to (I could _never not ever_
use Open Dictionary from Smile in OS 9, which either crashed my whole
machine with a ">" dialog box, or resulted in a total machine freeze with no
feedback.
Current Smile X versions (late 2.x stable and early 3.x beta) both offer a
compromise that is much like what Bill suggests. Installed OSAX,
AppleScript and current running processes are all available and then there
are two other menu choices: 'Open...' and 'Open with browser...'
The first is a standard Open File box, the other does exhibit the Very Long
Wait Annoyance being discussed, but: the list seems cached, there is a
'Cancel' button that does respond and there is a 'Browse...' button (oddly
named, since I am _in_ the Browser already) that then does exactly what the
'Open...' menu does: standard Open File selection box.
The full A-Z listing of every app (Classic and X) on the whole drive bank
seems to be cached. (I actually wondered how I could copy the list as text
earlier today, because it's quite thorough and I was laughing at some items
in the list, from my Classic partition. Remember 'Frog Prints', anyone? It
still works in Classic, as I found out with glee.
But seriously, is this 'drive scan' problem an OSX-wide issue?
I also notice the same behavior in several other OS X contexts where it also
is irritating. When I use the Classic tab of System Preferences, just
clicking on the Classic Startup sub-tab starts a whole new, uninterruptible
search for new System Folders (what am I, adding them like mad over here?)
I just want a button in all these scan situations that says "Update List"
and otherwise it shows me the same cached/stale list along with my 'Always
show' favorites.
Hey, at least the SBbOD is prettier in X than it used to be ;)
--
Gary
Just wondering...
Do all of these contexts rely on the same core service from the OS? Is it a
problem that could be mediated, then, with some intervening middle-ware?
Are there caches of what's an app and what's not already?
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