CompuServe Messages

Well, a standard is nice indeeed, but the ideal is a standard the individual is most comfortable with. File requesters, though only part of it, are a hotly debated and highly visible part. Consider the variety of features in file requesters… some provide a parent gadget, gadgets for devices, file sizes, free space on the disk, sorting (in a variety of flavours), 'hot' selection, delayed or dynamic display, and so on. You couldn't possibly expect a file requester to please evreryone, or even for a file requester existing that has all the features (and no more0 that any randomly chosen user would desire. In other areas, yes, there should be similar flexibility in the way things are presented. Libraries of common routines for text handling, though not as visible to the end user, would certainly help the programmer to build his interface. People don't buy a machine siolely because of a file requester, but they do place heavy emphasis on the user interface, if they are like the majority of users who have been exposed to window/icon/mouse machines. It's the icing on the cake when the machine ill not only do what you want it to do, but will do it in a way that makes it easy for you. The real beauty of configurability is that nobody is forced to change the configuration.