Re: Folder Icons

[Andre-John Mas <ama act qc ca>]

Sean Murphy wrote:
> 
> You don't have to use stuffit to copy it with metadata intact, at least when
> you are copying from a Mac to a Mac.  The file shows up on your client Mac with
> everything set correctly; the icon is correct for that application and
> double-clicking on that icon opens the correct program to access the data.
> 
> I don't claim to know how it works, and I know that you DO have problems trying
> to transfer the files to non-Mac computers.  For example, a JPEG file on the
> Mac might be called "Picture of Me" (no extension).  You won't have any trouble
> opening it on the Mac.  If you transfer it to a Windows or Unix machine, they
> won't have a clue what it is.  Although if you rename it "me.jpg", Windows and
> Unix are much happier.
> 
> Personally, I kind of like the fact that the filename doesn't matter at ALL,
> the metadata keeps track of the file association so the system knows what type
> of file it is.

The way it works on the Mac is that all files have two 'forks': the data
fork,
which contains file data such as your JPEG image or RTF document, and
the
resource fork which contains resources specific to the file in question.
For
example an application would store its icons, images, dialog layouts and
other stuff in the resource fork. A file that has a custom icon would
have
its icon in the resource fork and the system would look for the icon in
there.
Nothing is lost when the Mac moves a file around because it knows about
the
resource fork.

The resource fork usually ends up being excess luggage when the file is
transfered to another platform. One solution was the MacBinary file
format,
though this meant that the otherwise useful data fork became unreadable
to any non-Mac app. Another was to have a resource fork folder in the 
same folder as the data element. Either way the solutions don't really
work when you leave the Mac arena.

OpenStep uses a solution which works for apps, but not for general
files.
This is to have the application with all its resources placed in one
folder.
When viewed in the GUI world this folder is treated as a
double-clickable
application ( the .app extension tells the OS how to treat the folder ).

Metadata is very dependent on the tools available knowing how to handle
that information and knowing that any change in the status of the file
needs to be reflected in the metadata database. Dot files, or hidden
files
tend to go with the directory, so there is little risk of them being
lost. Also it is very easy to delete the information when it is no use
to
you - you don't need to know how the metadata is stored.

If you are GUI exclusive user and are only using Gnome and realise that
the validity of the Metadata is only valid in the realm of Gnome, then
Metadata is a good solution, especially since you can add extended
information, a bit like the BeOS does with its file database.

Andre