Everyone that argues that for all users that never plans on using an web interface to access, that they should also eliminate spaces in their file names need to take a good hard look at the file structure within Windows. Even if you eliminate all spaces in your file names, the file still probably resides in a folder called "My Documents" or maybe "Program Files". Notice that Windows does NOT name these "My_Documents" or "Program_Files". In other words, if your files stay within the frameworks of Windows, feel free to capitalize as much as you want and use as many spaces in a file name to make it easily read by humans. Renaming to eliminate capitalization and spaces does not make much sense when what you really end up with is something like "C:/Users/Brian/My Documents/this_is_my_politically_correct_file.jpg".
The only dangers exist occurs when the filename police want to access your files from within a Command Line Interface (such as DOS) or whenever a web browser changes the URL to a file name to include "%20" in lieu of the spaces. Even in that case, no danger exists but some people go off the deep end whenever they see a dreaded %20 in a URL. Take a deep breath and realize the a URL of "Image%201.jpg" is the same as the Windows file "Image 1.jpg". A web browser knows they are the same; it's just that they look different to humans and that upsets those people that are still stuck wanting to use the virtues of the 8.3 file name conventions. Another interesting point is that Firefox browsers no longer shows the %20 in the address bar or as part of the URL but IE and Chrome continue to do so. Internally, Firebox still maintains the %20 as part of the "converted" file name but tries to keep the outward appearance of the file names the same as the user originally named them. More user friendly. My web files are full of capitalization and white spaces where they've resided on Linux servers for over 15 years and I've yet to have a 404 error due to naming problems. Typically these were on Apache run servers using Linux OS which seems to be the most dominant system on the Web. Granted, some of the URLs look downright hideous and I'm trying to be more web friendly but there is no need to go back and change any of the existing file names. Brian in CA -----Original Message----- From: William Hoff [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 6:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] Media File Names I've read here that media file names should have no caps and no spaces. Are there any other rules / best practices one needs to know about? Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
