Joined: Jun 20, 2003 Posts: 104 Location: Birmingham, Alabama; and Amelia (Terni), Italy
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:45 am Post subject: File type/creator recognition?
Is it true that Apple has been officially deprecating use of resources, including use of file types and creators? Because I'd sure like to see NOJ auto-recognize all our zillions of old Word 98 and Excel 4 documents (Word 98 and Excel are old, not necessarily the documents!) without having to change all their names, and without a well-intentioned OS X second-guessing me when I do it. And I'd love to see NOJ as an automatic "Recommended" option when opening text and Excel files too (same would apply to WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 documents for other users).
One of the elegant features of the original Mac OS was self-aware documents--they knew who their daddy was! I'd hate to see this capability disappear, and I'd love to see it in NOJ...? _________________ Gib Henry
Apple isn't really the issue here. The issue is that OOo is largely a Windows application and, as such, it assumes the Windows way of doing things: identifying file types based on extensions.
In general, my opinion is that we will see less and less support in Mac OS X for the file type/creator codes. My thinking is that file type/creator codes work wonderfully on local disk but they start to become difficult to deal with when files are opened from mounted file systems, web sites, or e-mail attachments.
Joined: Jun 20, 2003 Posts: 104 Location: Birmingham, Alabama; and Amelia (Terni), Italy
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:07 am Post subject:
pluby wrote:
In general, my opinion is that we will see less and less support in Mac OS X for the file type/creator codes. My thinking is that file type/creator codes work wonderfully on local disk but they start to become difficult to deal with when files are opened from mounted file systems, web sites, or e-mail attachments.
I agree that if it doesn't become a cross-platform standard (hardly likely), then it'll eventually disappear. Pity. Sort of like Betamax! Cheers, _________________ Gib Henry
Ironically, I learned via my association with the libwpd folks that there are people within OOo working to improve parts of the OOo code so that it correctly handles files "regardless of extension."
I don't know what this means in real life or if "regardless of extension" only means "has an incorrect extension" rather than "has no extension."
The WriterPerfect filter we have in Neo/J (and which will be in OOo 2) does this already with the Mac WordPerfect documents, thanks to a lot of hard work by Fridrich. The WP-Mac files aren't recognized when you filter the Open/Save dialogues by file type (because those are hard-coded to use the extensions), but the reason we can open extensionless (WP-Mac) documents without being getting a stupid "Choose a Filter" or "Import ASCII" dialogue is because of file detection.
I also understood that the NTFS used by modern versions of Windows has support for "rich metadata" like type/creator, but I don't know that any implementation based on that support has ever been offered. And, alas, as Patrick notes, the folks that manage the internet protocols and such are unlikely to re-engineer their systems to support a more user-friendly method of file associations that is only supported by one OS.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
There is a bug in SRX645 that makes that all files with extension that is nomally detected with the Writer's internal typedetection service in sw/source/ui/uno/swdetect.cxx+swdet2.cxx and sw/in/iodetect.cxx, will NEVER be examined by other filter detection services. It means that if a WordPerfect Document has an extension *.doc or *.sxw, for example, it will not be detected correctly and Writer's typedetection service will use its fall-back solution: plain text import. Nevertheless for files without extension and with unknown extension, everything is OK.
NOTE: Changes have been made in SRC680 to avoid it and the current milestome m80 with CWS libwpdupgrade handles ALL WordPerfect files correctly whatever their name is
Fridrich
As a crossplattform programmer in a crossplattform environment, i really think the ressource-fork is a pain in the ... well, the res is ok, but it would be much better to have it in the fileheader, like, say in jpeg(with exif), than in a seperate file. Ever browsed a shared smb directory with linux or win, without filtering "._"?
I think seperate res files are the last big legacy of os 9, so cut it
As a crossplattform programmer in a crossplattform environment, i really think the ressource-fork is a pain in the ...
BTW, the type/creator metadata is *NOT* in the resource fork. Just like the date/time creater/modified is not in the resource fork. Both forms of metadata are features of the file system and are stored in the file system, not anywhere in the individual file.
Too many people get these confused and end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I do not manage to transfer my files between a os10.4 with neooffice and a os9 with word98 by the local area network. the type/creator and not good, I have verifier and that gives me no%f and not that of Word and yet I safeguard with the Word format with the result that I must has each time to change it
Will File Exchange work on a local Mac (afp or afp-over-ip) network? He might end up needing an AppleScript droplet or some app to do the changes.
Edit: If that turns out to be the case, I have an AppleScript droplet that will work right now on Mac OS X and I can make it work on Mac OS 9 with a little bit of work....
Anyway, what I originally wanted to say was that since Gib started this thread long ago, Patrick did make Neo/J add its creator code (as a type code because the OOo saving codepath was so messed up, and that's what's causing notre ami français so much trouble, as Word doesn't think it's a "Word document"--as opposed to a document owned by Word--anymore) so that people could save and rename files as they wished and still have them be opened by Neo/J in the Finder.
This is great for those of us who work in Neo/J-only situations or send Word files to others via email, but apparently has some drawbacks in a few rare edge cases
Smokey
who can no longer type ç in Camino under 10.3.9 suddenly.... _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Last edited by sardisson on Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:46 am; edited 1 time in total
Yes, File Exchange has a checkbox to apply its settings everywhere.
I think writing type/creator codes is a step back. Who doesn't use extensions for naming files? It's easier to exchange files with other OSes if you keep the extension and type/creator code confuses Word on Mac OS 9
A workaround may be to choose Word as a converter for Neo/J created files in this screen :
Yes, File Exchange has a checkbox to apply its settings everywhere.
[...]
A workaround may be to choose Word as a converter for Neo/J created files in this screen :
Ah, OK, either of those should work. It's only been about 2 years, but I've forgotten so much already
val1984 wrote:
I think writing type/creator codes is a step back. Who doesn't use extensions for naming files? It's easier to exchange files with other OSes if you keep the extension and type/creator code confuses Word on Mac OS 9
Creator codes are actually a better document-binding system than extensions. It allows you to separate your documents of the same type in a way that extensions do not, because extensions are global. I have some JPGs I'm editing that I want always opened in Photoshop, some that I've downloaded from the web always to open in Preview for viewing, and some that I need to convert to other formats should open in GraphicConverter. (Multiply this times all of the document types I use in different situations.) Creator codes allow this. With extensions, they all open in the same app. Extensions are like the Dock; trying to do too many things they're not well-suited for.
As for identifying data type, extensions are nearly as good as type codes. The advantage of type codes is that it leaves the user completely in control of the file name, and user control of one's computer and one's documents has been a hallmark of the Mac experience.
To deal with file exchange via internet protocols, Apple took the "easy," un-Mac, think-same way out. Instead of engineering a great years-ahead-of-its-time layer that automatically and transparently added the extension based on the file type (or even that allowed prompting the user "You are transferring this document via a method that may make it un-readible by the recipient; do you want to add the appropriate filename extension [.ext]?" or something).
Instead we have a broken system, hastily patched in some cases, where some apps don't recognize files without type, some that don't recognize files without extensions, some that set one or the other, and tons of content from years of use that's now a hassle to access in many cases. More of my documents now have extensions than used to, because I've had to deal with the ins and outs of Mac OS X...but many long-time Mac users still prefer to avoid extensions if they're using sensible apps
Anyway...the last part of this post probably belongs down in ranting
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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