I was just doing some testing, and it seems that Save Desktop (Ctrl+S) and Save Desktop as default template do EXACTLY the same thing: they BOTH save the desktop as standard.mlt.
BFN
Cad
“Save Desktop” saves the desktop under the current filename (the one that is displayed in the title bar), or prompts for a filename if none is currently set.
“Save Desktop as” will always prompt for a new filename.
“Save Desktop as default template” will save the current desktop as $ROOTFOLDER\standard.mlt, no matter what the current filename is.
If the current filename happens to be $ROOTFOLDER\standard.mlt, “Save desktop” and “Save desktop as default template” do the exact same thing, by coincidence.
If you think that anything is wrong with this, let me know.
Well … sort of … ;D
If you don’t have any .mlt or .mld files at all (I deleted them deliberately ;)), then you start mAirList, Save Desktop will save to standard.mlt.
If you have saved a standard.mlt file (Save desktop as default template), then you start mAirList, but you have NOT ‘Opened’ standard.mlt, Save Desktop will save to standard.mlt.
Correct so far?
In case 2) above, I presume that standard.mlt (if it exists, and there are no other .mld or .mlt files) is used when mAirList is started. My problem with Save Desktop saving to standard.mlt in that case is that you could very easily overwrite standard.mlt without realising it. I think it would be better here to either a) save the desktop as standard.mld OR b) present a Save As dialog so the user knows exactly what is being saved.
In case 1) above, again I think you should be saving standard.mld. I also think that if standard.mld exists, mAirList should use THAT file as its ‘default’ desktop file.
Think of it like this: if you save an MS Word document, it is saved as a .doc unless you specifically save it as a template file (.dot). Likewise, although every ‘blank’ document is initially loaded from normal.dot, you would NOT expect that Save would write to normal.dot!
So, I think mAirList desktop files/templates would be more ‘obvious’ to users if they worked in a similar way:
Save Desktop should ONLY save to the file that was opened if it is a .mld file. If the file opened is .mlt, mAirList should always show a Save As dialog. Then the user can decide whether they really want to save it as a .mlt file or not. This also prevents the user accidentally overwriting standard,mlt without realising that that is what they have done.
a (desirable!) side-effect of this is that the ONLY way you can write a standard.mlt file is by either:
a) clicking Save Desktop as default template
or
b) clicking Save Desktop and specifically choosing to write to standard.mlt.
BFN
Cad
[quote=“Cad, post:3, topic:7408”]1) If you don’t have any .mlt or .mld files at all (I deleted them deliberately ;)), then you start mAirList, Save Desktop will save to standard.mlt.
Correct so far?[/quote]
No, not correct.
In either case, clicking Save Desktop on a freshly started mAirList instance will bring up the filename selection dialog.
The desktop/template mechanism was inspired by Word and normal.dot and should work in pretty much the same way.
As a thumb rule, Save Desktop will prompt for a filename whenever “(untitled)” is displayed in the window title. This is the case if no desktop was loaded at all (after program startup when no standard.mlt exists, or after clicking New), or when a template (.mlt) file was loaded. In the latter case, the file name in the title bar will be cleared, preventing you from overwriting the template with the Save button.
On the other hand, when you save the current desktop as an .mlt file, the filename will be displayed in the titlebar, and subsequent clicks on Save Desktop will overwrite it without a prompt. This is for the situation when you edit a template and want to save it once in a while without being prompted for the filename over and over again.
The only debatable point is what should happen when you use “Save desktop as default template” in order to overwrite standard.mlt - should standard.mlt appear in the window title (enabling the Save Desktop button) or not? At the moment, it does. Is this the thing you stumbled upon?