http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=865856


in reply to OS X troubleshooting help needed - parse filename & open file

Such is the beast that for multi-platform programs, you end up creating the app as a lowest common denominator, with plenty of overhead code to prevent it falling over on variants of the operating systems. There are many variants of Unix, Linux, and Windows, and some variants file systems work differently, causing problems. I join the chorus in highly recommending a File::Spec or similar cross-platform filehandling solution, so you don't end up with workarounds for OS variants throughout your code. Then as long as you use the module properly, your app will run on many OS variants, current or future.
Mind you in OSX you could instead create an ActionScript action instead, or your app could be made into a service, which could make things nicer, but unfortunatelly not portable to other OSes.
Maybe (or maybe not) you'd be better off having a gui/web interface instead of drag'n'drop to console. Using a console in the first place assumes a certain level of user knowledge, and you might just be better off to get them to specify path instead of introducing the drag'n'drop to console thing into it.
if you want your project to succeed, you will need to think about your application audience closely, to avoid disappointment. whether you're a programmer/software-engineer or not.
all the best in your project. you might possibly be interested in a freshmeat project called "Sally", so i mention it.
the hardest line to type correctly is: stty erase ^H
  • Comment on Re: OS X troubleshooting help needed - parse filename & open file

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: OS X troubleshooting help needed - parse filename & open file
by elef (Friar) on Oct 18, 2010 at 07:46 UTC
    Sally does look like something in the same general area as text alignment, but I'm not the one to tell how useful it could be... that stuff goes right over my head. My aligner has hunalign do the heavy lifting, I just built a frontend for it with pre- and postprocessing and a bunch of other user-friendly features.

    Maybe (or maybe not) you'd be better off having a gui/web interface instead of drag'n'drop to console. Using a console in the first place assumes a certain level of user knowledge, and you might just be better off to get them to specify path instead of introducing the drag'n'drop to console thing into it.

    Well, a gui would be nicer and less scary for the users, but it would also be a hell of a lot of work. I'm considering making a gui with tk or something similar for this later on. BTW this started as a windows batch script, which I rewrote in perl to make it cross-platform and expand the functionality. I'm definitely not going back to a single-platform solution unless it's for Windows and it allows me to easily write a more powerful program with a nice gui... probably not even then.
    Getting the user to specify a path... that's what I wanted to get away from. That requires the user to have quite a bit of computer knowledge and even then it's a royal pain to do. Most savvy people would end up moving their files to where the aligner is, and most unsavvy people would end up not being able to use the thing at all. IMO drag & drop is the best solution considering that a file browsing gui is out of the question for now.