atari desktop.inf and fileviewing
The following trick will enable you to view any file with a program of your own choice, just by double-clicking on the file.
Install the program as normal with some (actually any) extension. Save your desktop and load desktop.inf into your favorite editor. Now find the line that correspond to the installation of the fileviewer, and move that line up BEFORE the lines that determines what files are executables. Furthermore edit the extension to *.*@
After doing this, my desktop.inf looks like this:
#a000000
#b000000
#c7770007000600070055200505552220770557075055507703111103
#d
#E 78 13
#W 00 00 00 03 4C 0C 08 C:\APPL\*.*@
#W 00 00 02 0B 4C 09 00 @
#W 00 00 0A 0F 34 09 00 @
#W 00 00 0E 01 34 09 00 @
#M 02 00 00 FF D HARDDISK@ @
#M 01 00 00 FF C HARDDISK@ @
#M 00 00 00 FF A FLOPPY DISK@ @
#T 00 07 02 FF TRASH@ @
#F FF 04 @ *.*@
#D FF 01 @ *.*@
#P 03 04 C:\BIN\MANPAGER.TTP@ *.*@
#G 03 FF *.APP@ @
#G 03 FF *.PRG@ @
#P 03 FF *.TTP@ @
#F 03 04 *.TOS@ @
#G 03 04 C:\APPL\UTIL\DIVERSE\CMD\CMD.PRG@ *.CMD@
#G 03 04 C:\TEX\SHOWDVI\SHOWDVI.PRG@ *.DVI@
#G 03 04 C:\APPL\UTIL\DIVERSE\TOM_SHEL\TOMSHELL.PRG@ *.TOM@ As you can see, the viewer (in my case c:\bin\manpager.ttp) is now placed before the *.APP and *.PRG stuff.
The trick is that the document type for c:\bin\manpager.ttp is *.* which matches anything. Therefore it must be the last pattern tried by the desktop.
The desktop searches the list in reverse order, therefore the entry must be first. Otherwise any other program would be seen as a document for the manpager, including any executable file!
I tried it yesterday and it really worked. I have TOS 1.4, but I suspect that it should work under older versions as well.
Christian Lynbech
DAIMI
office: R0.32
phone: 5034
University of Aarhus,DK-Denmark
email: lynbech@daimi.aau.dk
