From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat May 04 2002 - 09:21:16 EDT
--- Patrick Lam <plam@plam.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > On
Sat, May 04, 2002 at 04:33:47AM +0100, Andrew
> Dunbar wrote:
> > > > This is what I mean by "properly XP". The
> Windows
> > > > equivalent to a lot of command-line options
> might
> > > > sometimes be the context menu...
> > >
> > > I couldn't understand this sentence.
> >
> > "XP" as in "Cross Platform".
> > Most Windows users never use the command-line.
> > Many things that can be accomplished (but not all)
> > with the command line, are done in a different way
> on
> > Windows. And that is by adding "context menu"
> items
> > for the "filetypes". You can support printing
> this
> > way for instance, and MSWord does this. You
> right-
> > click on an MSWord file and the other functions
> > appear in the popup menu. It would be up to the
> > Windows installer to set this up AFAIK - it's done
> > by creating Registry entries. Sometimes these
> entries
> > use command-lines, sometimes they use more arcane
> > Windowsisms that only Windows hackers understand.
> > All mostly hidden from the user.
>
> Aren't these done using commandline args, behind the
> scenes?
Sometimes these entries use command-lines, sometimes
they use more arcane Windowsisms that only Windows
hackers understand.
Oh I just checked and the arcane thing is called "DDE"
which seems to be a way to send messages to running
processes.
But the point is that since the user hardly ever uses
the command-line directly, it's probably not so
important how they work. There seems to be any number
of ways that different programs use them going by a
quick look at some filetypes on this cybercafe
machine.
Andrew.
> pat
=====
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