Simon,
I like your thinking on this one. I especially liked the idea of having this as a button in a preference panel somewhere. I wrote something similar a while ago. Write up in the Squeak fixes archive at:
http://swiki.gsug.org:8080/sqfixes/973.html
As I recall, we talked about this subject for several months prior to the release of this changeset. We laughed, we cried, but most of all we cared. Well, we didn't care all that much, but it makes for a good story.
[As an aside, I'll point out that it really wasn't that interesting of a story to begin with. However, when a newbie asks, "How do I make a .exe file from my Squeak program?" on this list, that generates a five day dissertation (hard to tell how long really, related threads have cropped up that may make this last a fortnight or two) on subjects ranging from UI paradigms, incompetency of commercial implementors, the relationships of computers to philosophy, etc. In the end, I think that what I called, "Carrying preferences around" was at least as uninteresting as "how do I make an .exe file?", but not nearly as controversial].
One thing you might consider is writing your preference file out as a list of doits. I recall that Tim Rowledge suggested that as an easy way to import your settings without being required to have the preference changeset loaded [As an added bonus, you can put this on the command line]. I use this all the time. I have a preference file I generated awhile back, and file it in first thing into a virgin image. This configures the image to be a more comfortable place for me to work in without the usual fiddling with the myriad of options normally required.
Another thing you might consider is writing out system attributes other than just the preferences. For example, I also wrote out the window colors, system font settings, and things like that. I remember Lex Spoon mentioning that he wanted to be able to write out other settings such as Celeste preferences too.
The basic idea is to read in this one preference file to configure the image into your preferred working environment, without all the usual fiddling about that you're normally forced to do.
I'll send an updated version of my code to the list in case you want to lift any of the ideas directly.
Jim
----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Michael" simon@joyful.com To: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 12:36 PM Subject: [ENH] save preferences to disk
"Add buttons to the preferences panel to save & restore settings to & from disk. This is useful for transferring preferences from one image to another..."
I implemented this to save effort when I start a new image. It's my second changeset, and I welcome all comments. Lightly tested with 4411 and 4418.
Cheers, -Simon