[MacPerl] Comments and questions from a new user

[Timothy Bailey <telestro@earthlink.net>]

I just started using MacPerl a few weeks ago, and have bene watching this
list for a similar period of time.  I've been using Perl under Unix for a
couple years, though, so I'm pretty familiar with Perl in general.  (And
I've been using Macs for 15 years, so I'm quite familar with them, as well.
:)

Most of my programs converted over with little pain, other than having to
substitute some libraries in place of external Unix programs.  But one
thing that puzzled me until reading about it here recently is what Shuck
was for, yes, I never ran it, because MacPerl seemed to be running fine by
itself.  (And the word "shuck" with a picture of an ear of corn doesn't
seem to be related to documentation.)  And looking back over the
documentation, there is a small reference to Shuck having to deal with
documentation, but nothing really overt.  (I really haven't used pods, as I
have not much used libraries in the past, and got the documentation for
them off of web pages.  Duh for me, but still. :)  Therefore, my suggestion
for the revised new user introduction documents (whatever form that is
going to take) is that the fact that Shuck is for documentation should be
more prominently displayed.  (And yes, now that I have Internet Config set
up correctly, I see that many options from the MacPerl Help menu opens
things in Shuck.)

Anyway, I plan to get the MacPerl book to go with my other Perl books.  But
before then, I have some questions that I'm hoping may have simple answers
in MacPerl:

Is there a way to get/set a file's Finder label? (I don't see it in
FSpGetFInfo/FSpSetFInfo, which would seem to be the most logical place.)

Is there a way to start and/or stop an Open Transport connection?



Good job on MacPerl, to those here that worked on it; it looks good and
solid and very compatible with Perl on other platforms, plus it seems to
have some good Mac additions.  (Which I really haven't gone into yet.)  The
main problems are that it seems a bit pokey (expected for an interpreter)
and the text editor is =very= basic.  (No shift-arrow to select text, no
forward delete.)


[ Oh yes, and when I try to include the Mac::StandardFile module, I get the
following error:

# Can't find loadable object for module Mac::StandardFile in @INC
(Zeus:Applications:MacPerl Ÿ:lib:MacPPC Zeus:Applications:MacPerl Ÿ:lib
Dev:Pseudo)
File 'Dev:Pseudo'; Line 3

Any ideas why it doesn't want to load?  (Mac::Files and Mac::MoreFiles, for
example, work fine.)  I'm using the line "use Mac::StandardFile;" exactly
as in the FAQ and in various messages I've seen here.  I have not messed
with the libraries or @INC, other than manually installing a few modules
like libwww. ]

--
 Tim Bailey / tim@moonrise.org |\/  "All truths are easy to understand once
 telestro@earthlink.net        |\/    they are discovered; the point is to
 http://www.moonrise.org       |                discover them."
 -------(69 days to Y2K!)--------              -- Galileo Galilei




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