[I7] I7 projects and bundle files

[Jesse McGrew]

On Dec 29, 2007 8:26 PM, Philip Chimento <philip.chimento at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 29, 2007 6:45 PM, Adam Thornton <adam at fsf.net> wrote:
> > However, how tough would it be, to, in addition to letting
> > project.inform be a directory, containing Source, Build, and Index
> > (and their contents), to also allow it to be any of: a zipfile, a
> > tarball, a tarball compressed with bzip2, and a tarball compressed
> > with gzip ?  Or, perhaps, *one* of these, chosen for ease of
> > manipulation across platforms (probably zip) ?
> >
> > The file name and extension would still be .inform.  The contents
> > would just be whatever is normally in the proj.inform directory.
>
> I could probably do that. I haven't looked yet, but I'm sure there are
> plenty of clever libraries that let you read and write zip files in
> place transparently. But why not use the extension .inform.zip?

I'd recommend using a new extension (with a single dot): maybe
.inform-zip or .i7proj.

The Windows version currently suffers from the problem that you can't
double click an Inform project file and have it open in I7, because
it's really a directory, and double clicking a directory just opens it
in Explorer. Using the extension .zip would cause a similar problem:
double click a zip file and it'll open in WinZip, or WinRAR, or that
awful Windows Compressed Folder Wizard, unless you associate *every*
zip file with Inform.

A new extension, on the other hand, would allow the files to be
associated with I7 and nothing else.

For this reason, I must disagree with Andrew that zipped projects are
only for people who know how zip works. MacOS is set up to easily
treat directories as bundles of files, but other platforms aren't, and
new users on those platforms may wonder why their Inform projects
don't work like every other kind of document.

[...]
> What do you suggest for saving files? Always save compressed projects
> from now on? Have a checkbox in the file selector saying something
> like "Compress project to save space (recommended)"? (ugh,
> "recommended") At first I thought the checkbox was the best way to go
> so that users of new versions could still do collaborations with users
> of old versions. But then again, they could just upgrade. I read that
> in good interface design, you shouldn't offer the user a bunch of
> options, you should just pick the options they'll need. Anyone who
> needs the unzipped files for some reason probably knows how zip works.

Agreed. I don't think it's worth worrying about interoperability with
older versions of I7, because the language changes at such a fast pace
that the project won't be compatible anyway.

I'd say compressed projects should be the default. If there must be an
option for uncompressed projects, it should be hidden away, either in
the file type drop box in the save dialog (if your OS supports it), or
in the IDE preferences.

vw