BAVECO wrote:
I tried to run my image from another computer on the network (with the VM copied to this other computer). It works OK, except that sources and changes files are not available: Squeak looks for these files on the machine where the VM is (more or less hard-coded by appending imagename.changes to "SystemDictionary vmFile"). Wouldn't it be reasonable to take the location of the image file as the default location to look for changes and sources files, instead of the location of the VM? How hard would it be to change to current setting?
Take a look in VisualWorks 3.0 at PortableFilename and LogicalFilename. We were faced with the problem of moving an image between machines when it has loaded an arbitrary number of parcels, each with its own source file. Some parcel sources might be in the same directory as the image, but most would be loaded from "standard" locations. By naming sources via symbolic names (environment variables or registruy entries) one can set the values of these variables appropriately on each system you move the image to and hence one doesn't have to change names.
An example would be the standard source file whose filename is '$(VISUALWORKS)\image\visual.sou' asLogicalFileSpecification
These filenames have worked-out extremely well. Since VW3.0 I've not had to adjust the name of a single source file, and a number of my images have 10 or so associated source files.
P.S. Since we haven't released on PowerMac yet I'd be interested in knowing how those of you who use macs think such variables would be maintained on the mac. On Unix we use the shell/process environment; on Windows NT/'95 we use the registry backed-up by the environment. _______________,,,^..^,,,_______________ Eliot