Clicking on .ST files?

When installing Dolphin, I believe the installation
process associates '.ST' files with Dolphin. Double-
clicking an .ST -file in the FileManager/Explorer then
starts up Dolphin.

But if you already have Dolphin running, I believe
a new instance of Dolphin gets started every time.

Is there an easy way to configure the system so that
a text-editor within the already running instance
of Dolphin would be opened instead ?

Thanks
-Panu Viljamaa

Panu,

> When installing Dolphin, I believe the installation
> process associates '.ST' files with Dolphin. Double-
> clicking an .ST -file in the FileManager/Explorer then
> starts up Dolphin.

It depends on which Dolphin version you are using. Version 4 and earlier did
make associations with .st, .cls and .pa? but Dolphin XP doesn't, by default
it only associates .img files.

ISTR that the difficulty was deciding which image to start if a .st file was
selected.  Previous versions of Dolphin would remember and reopen the last
image file used but with Dolphin XP that facility was removed and you always
(unless you have saved an image as dolphin.img) need to specify the image
file name.

> But if you already have Dolphin running, I believe
> a new instance of Dolphin gets started every time.
>
> Is there an easy way to configure the system so that
> a text-editor within the already running instance
> of Dolphin would be opened instead ?

I don't think so but Andy/Blair would know for certain.

FWIW, I tend to associate all these file types with Wordpad rather than
Dolphin.  Double clicking on a file in Windows would normally mean I'm in
"browse" mode and just want to look at the contents.  If I'm in "evaluate
and install"  mode then I prefer to open them from within an open image -
maybe that's just me though :-)

Regards
    Ian

Panu,

> > When installing Dolphin, I believe the installation
> > process associates '.ST' files with Dolphin. Double-
> > clicking an .ST -file in the FileManager/Explorer then
> > starts up Dolphin.
>
> It depends on which Dolphin version you are using. Version 4 and earlier
did
> make associations with .st, .cls and .pa? but Dolphin XP doesn't, by
default
> it only associates .img files.
>
> ISTR that the difficulty was deciding which image to start if a .st file
was
> selected.  Previous versions of Dolphin would remember and reopen the last
> image file used but with Dolphin XP that facility was removed and you
always
> (unless you have saved an image as dolphin.img) need to specify the image
> file name.

Ian, is correct. These file associations were removed in D5, partly because
of the reason above and partly because several people had experienced a
"conflict of interest" when several Smalltalks were installed on the same
machine.

> > But if you already have Dolphin running, I believe
> > a new instance of Dolphin gets started every time.
> >
> > Is there an easy way to configure the system so that
> > a text-editor within the already running instance
> > of Dolphin would be opened instead ?
>
> I don't think so but Andy/Blair would know for certain.

IIRC, Windows does pass in a value to a launching EXE to indicate whether
there is a previous running instance of that application. The EXE is, I
think, then at liberty to refuse to continue and Windows then hands over
control to that previous instance. The problem with using this mechanism for
opening up ST files inside an already open copy of Dolphin is that one would
then not be able to open different instance of Dolphin on different image
files. Or at least it would be difficult to decide which image to use.
Currently, the necessary logic does not exist in the Dolphin.exe loader.

> FWIW, I tend to associate all these file types with Wordpad rather than
> Dolphin.  Double clicking on a file in Windows would normally mean I'm in
> "browse" mode and just want to look at the contents.  If I'm in "evaluate
> and install"  mode then I prefer to open them from within an open image -
> maybe that's just me though :-)

I do that too.

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com
---
Are you trying too hard?
http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm
---

Ian Bartholomew wrote:

> ... FWIW, I tend to associate all these file types with Wordpad rather than
> Dolphin.  Double clicking on a file in Windows would normally mean I'm in
> "browse" mode and just want to look at the contents.

Makes sense. Thanks.

However, clicking on a file would be
much faster way to browse a source-file,
than clicking on a file menu, choosing 'install',
and then locating the file you want to install,
and then opening a class browser for it.

I guess the 2-click shouldn't actually *install*
the code, but just  allow me to *browse it*
- in a real browser as opposed to Notepad -,
and  then give me the option to  install if I want
to..

I understand there may be technical reasons
why such a 'non-compiling browser' is not
easy to do.

It kind of boils down to how Smalltalk is
still somewhat isolated from other Windows
applications, perhaps due to its reliance on
the 'image'.  Would it help if it was only
possible to run one image at a time?

Thanks again
-Panu Viljamaa

Panu,

> However, clicking on a file would be
> much faster way to browse a source-file,
> than clicking on a file menu, choosing 'install',
> and then locating the file you want to install,
> and then opening a class browser for it.

Agreed. One of my goodies is a FileBrowser for Dolphin, with the usual
folder tree and file list, that enables single click browsing of certain
sorts of file (text, htm and some pictures) from within the image.  One of
the menu options, if a st or cls file is selected, allows you to file the
text into the image.  I should probably use it more than I do :-)

FileBrowser is not particularly pretty (no icons) but it has a couple of
other functions, a view that shows the selected file as an hex dump and a
macro key facility for repetitive tasks, that can occasionally be useful.

Ian
http://www.idb.me.uk