Re: Choose File Limited by File Extension OR Type ???
Re: Choose File Limited by File Extension OR Type ???
- Subject: Re: Choose File Limited by File Extension OR Type ???
- From: "Houston, Brad" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:55:22 -0700
- Importance: normal
- Priority: normal
- Thread-topic: Choose File Limited by File Extension OR Type ???
Title: Re: Choose File Limited by File Extension OR Type ???
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply.
By “irrevocable” I didn’t mean that I couldn’t change the setting to open them (eps’s) with another program, but that it seems that once you’ve entered that road of saying “open all documents like this” with a specified program you can’t go back to saying “open documents with whatever program they were last saved in”. Some confusion results from the meaning of “documents like this”, which seems to mean “with this same extension”, resulting in my Photoshop eps’s opening ever-after in Illustrator due to a moment of weakness.
If you know a way of removing this universal default, I’d love to hear it, aside from going to each file and doing it individually (far too many, and more coming in daily).
Rocket science I can deal with, its the capriciousness of human decisions I have trouble with.
I intend to make use of the UTI. The earlier message here was the first I’d heard of them. Thank you Matthew Smith.
Except for exchanging files with PCs pre OS 10, never needed an extension. The icon indicated the nature of the file, and the file ‘knew’ what it should open in, or it could be forced to open in other apps as desired, no extensions required. I’ve grown use to them now, just don’t like them dictating anything, since they can be changed though the file remains the same.
Brad
On 4/24/08 11:17 AM, "John C. Welch" <email@hidden> wrote:
On 4/24/08 1:30 PM, "Houston, Brad" <email@hidden> wrote:
On a similar topic, what happened to the concept of the "creator".
My problem is dealing with eps files (still Type = “EPSF”), in the tens of thousands, some of which are Photoshop raster images, some of which are Illustrator vector art. Since the Mac OS has been "dumbed down" to UNIX, and must now rely on what arbitrary extension someone chooses to stick on a file instead of "knowing" what app created the file, reliability is shot. Add the complication of an general and seemingly irrevocable "open all files of this type" override possibility, and even the applications that created the files sometimes don't know what to do with them. When I check the creator on any random file it's equal odds it's going to say "ART5" (illustrator), "8BIM" (Photoshop), "vgrd", or "", regardless of what it really is, and everything tries to open in Illustrator CS2.
First, it’s not irrevocable, and fixing/changing the default for certain kinds of applications while not as obvious as it could/should be, is not rocket science either.
Secondly, while not as programmatically and visually elegant as file type/creator codes, extensions have two critical advantages for humans:
- They are obvious, i.e. right there, not hidden away in invisible metadata.
- They are easily changed, i.e., you don’t need special tools, i.e. ResEdit.
They aren’t as flexible as file type/creator codes to be sure, but they aren’t nearly as bad as most people want them to be. As well, with Mac OS X 10.4, Apple added another way to identify files, the UTI, which is more flexible than either extensions or Mac OS 9 - style metadata, but it will take ISVs a bit longer to implement them correctly.
But at least I can change an extension without needing programmer tools.
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