Re: Format: Data vs. Resource
Re: Format: Data vs. Resource
- Subject: Re: Format: Data vs. Resource
- From: Paul Berkowitz <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 08:19:07 -0800
- Thread-topic: Format: Data vs. Resource
On 3/12/06 1:44 AM, "Gnarlodious" <email@hidden> wrote:
> What are the relative pros and cons of the "Resource Fork" script versus the
> "Data Fork" script"? Is Apple moving in one direction? I confess I'm
> befuddled by the option.
The option is only in Script Debugger, for backwards compatibility. Script
Editor 2 (since Panther OS 10.3) has no such option - it makes only Data
Fork .scpt files, no resource fork files. It's pretty obvious which
direction AppleScript is heading.
There are a few applications which have not (yet) adopted the Panther APIs
for script menus. Among them is Entourage 2004 - which I know you use,
Gnarlie - (and of course Entourage X, plus older versions of other apps),
because Entourage 2004 was designed to function in OS 10.2.8 and later.
Panther script menu APIs would not work in OS 10.2.8.
Data Fork scripts do not save changes to script properties when run in
pre-Panther-API script menus, such as Entourage's. Such script menus try to
save properties in the resource fork of scripts - which don't exist in Data
Fork scripts. So to use scripts with properties (I mean properties declared,
usually at the top of the script) that can be changed and saved in Entourage
script menus, you need to go on using old-fashioned Resource Fork scripts
for now. That in turn means having access to Script Debugger. (I believe
that in Smile 2.6.x you could save as Resource Fork by omitting the '.scpt'
extension, but I think that's no longer the case with Smile 3.) Or use a
shell script that removes the resource fork - Barry Wainwright knows how to
do that one. The system script menu and most current versions of
applications that have their own script menus can save properties in data
fork .scpt files. (I'm sure the next version of Entourage, which won't need
to work in Jaguar, will do the same. But that could be quite a wait yet.)
The way of the future is Data Fork scripts (these are more Unix-y, I guess)
and Bundle script applications (applets).
--
Paul Berkowitz
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