From: sie6@quads.uchicago.edu (scott alexander siege)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: TRASHMAN does not suffer'Trash Manager' bug
Date: 5 Apr 92 22:35:13 GMT
Reply-To: sie6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Apr5.195653.18094@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dawg6844@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Dan Walkowski) writes:
>
>Mark Anbinder says:
>
># Third party utilities that access the Trash Manager directly, bypassing
># the normal functionality of the trash can, can cause problems in System 7.
># If you drag the alias of an item to the trash, the original item will be
># deleted.  In other words, the Trash Manager is being overzealous in its
># use of the Alias Manager (Trash Chute and Clean Delete are examples).
>
>First, I want to be extremely clear: TRASHMAN DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM.
>It has _never_ had this problem.  TrashMan works in a different manner.
>(I've been getting plenty of mail from concerned users of my utility,
>lately, which led to this posting)

I am very glad to hear this.  I think I will use it myself.

>
>Second, there IS NO 'Trash Manager'. Not only that, but the above behavior
>is _intended_, not an error.  It is because the FINDER immediately resolves
>all aliases dropped on an application, so the application never knows whether
>or not an alias was dropped on it.  It is simply passed a list of files.
>If the app goes ahead and deletes those files (exactly how Trash Chute
>and Clean Delete work) then they will always erase the originals.

I could not disagree more!!  You are right in saying that the FINDER is not 
broken, it is not. If you understand the workings of the finder, and the way
aliases work, and realize that such a utility will never even see the alias, 
then the above mechanism makes a lot of sense. However, I believe
most people expect the utility to delete the file dropped upon it. They expect
that the alias will be deleted, not the original. Think about it, the utilities
mentioned are designed to work as a more sophisticated Trash Can. When you drop
an alias on the trash can it is deleted, not the original. So, a user would, 
and should expect a trash utility to do the same unless it specifically
designed to do otherwise.  So, although the FINDER is not broken, and the above
mentioned trash utilities are working as predicted, the result when an alias is
dropped is unexpected, although easily explained.

>Note that this is how the Finder is supposed to behave, not an error.
>I wish people would get their facts straight before posting incendiary
>messages.  It is hard enough to get people to try new utilities.
>(And my apologies to Mr. Anbinder.  This posting was not meant as a personal
>attack.  I'm just asking him to be more careful in the future.) 

Actually, I am glad that the posting was made, I am sure many people out there
may have lost files by believing that they were simply trashing an alias when
they were really trashing a file, or a whole folder even.  (Do these utilities
eject a disk when one is dropped? Just wondering.)


>Again, TrashMan works as advertised, and does not have the above problem.
>Give it a try, I think you'll like it.  
>
>Dan Walkowski
>-- 
>Dan Walkowski  
>Univ. of Illinois
>walkowsk@cs.uiuc.edu
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Scott A. Siege