Re: user preferences was: NCSA X Mosaic 0.5 released

Tim Berners-Lee (timbl@www3.cern.ch)
Thu, 28 Jan 93 15:23:01 +0100


> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 10:59:43 CST
> From: Dan Connolly <connolly@pixel.convex.com>
>

...
> But Tim: about this user preferences stuff. I disagree with your
> strategy:
>

...
> X application should use the X resource database to get user
> preferences. Folks can build their X resource database from
> system-wide app-defaults files, files in their home directory,
> environment variables, command-line-args, etc.
>

> Works good.
>

> I've seen you write a couple times about having a user preference
> system that worked the same on the NeXT, Mac, X boxes, etc.
>

> Making them look the same from an API would be great.

We agree about that.

> But don't make users adapt to a new WWW scheme for doing user
preferences.
> NeXT folks should use the NeXT user preference database, just like
all
> they do for their other tools. Mac folks should find
"Preferences..."
> under the edit menu. X folks know how to muck with .Xdefaults and
xrdb.
> (though a friendlier UI to the x resource database is badly
needed).

Absolutely. I didn't mean to advocate a and actual .rc file,
I totally agree that the mechanism should be the natural local one
one in each environment. Like look and feel should also always be
local.

Tim