Hi Karina,
It's not really a Lingo question, but...
Mac files have two things that don't port well to the PC. The first is the
Type/Creator attribute. Since Macs don't usually use extensions (like
.EXE) to say what the file is, they instead use a type/creator
pair. Losing the type/creator information is like losing an ID card - the
operating system doesn't know what the file is for, though if you can
restore the type/creator information then you can revive the use of the file.
Copying a file to the PC will trash the type/creator info.
Second is the resource fork. Unlike type/creator info, which is just 8
letters of data, the resource fork can be huge, and it's got all sorts of
binary data. When copied to the PC, a file loses its resource fork and you
can NOT get it back just by copying it back onto a Mac.
Therefore, to move files onto a PC you must do something to preserve this
info. The easiest way is to use something like Stuffit to first create a
.SIT file, and then preferably create a binhex .HQX file from it. In
theory you don't need to make the .SIT file first, but if you don't the
result can get pretty big.
The .HQX format will preserve the resource fork and the type/creator and
wraps them up within a single-fork file. When the HQX is unpacked, that
information is restored.
If you unpack the information on a system that is not set up to deal with
it (namely, the PC) then the information is lost. If you want to preserve
the information, you have to cart it around in a loss-safe container like a
.HQX.
- Tab
At 06:07 PM 1/29/01 +0000, Karina Steffens wrote:
>Thaks to everyone who replied to my question.
>(re: mac executables becoming unusable after being moved accross a network
>using a pc).
>
>I aposigise that it took me so long to reply/follow up: Some new projects
>came up and I got side tracked....
>
>I did try most of the suggestions, but couldn't get them to work.
>
>
>The two shareware apps -
>
> >http://www.mac.org/utilities/filetyper/FileTyper_5.3.1.sit.hqx
>
>and
>
>http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ChaoticSoftware/ProductPages/DropAttribute.ht
>ml
>
>
>- did restore the projector's icon, but the resource forks were hopelessly
>missing, so the projectors could not be executed.
>
>
>Setting file associations, both on the NT server and my own PC (using
>PC-Maclan) produced null results as well, for some reason. The most I could
>manage was to retain the icon, but the resource forks still got seperated.
>
>I haven't got stuffit for the pc yet, but from my experience with
>downloading stuffed mac files and then moving them to the mac and
>un-suffing, that should work. The only thing is, I need to be able to work
>with the files (such as put them in the right folder), and I obviously can't
>do that while they're compressed. Does uncompressing the files on the pc
>actually retain resource forks and assosciations?
>
>
>The only solution I have so far is the one I'd been using all along, and
>that is to use a mac to move the files over the network. That seems to
>preserve the files, as long as I don't use a pc to move them around again.
>I'll keep in mind the stuffit solution for backup purposes.
>
>
>I must say I'm a bit confused about why the solutions I tried didn't work
>for me, since they seem to have worked for you guys...
>
>
>Thanks again for all your help,
>
>Karina
>
>
>
>
>
>[To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to
>http://www.penworks.com/LUJ/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list,
>email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED])
>Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
[To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to
http://www.penworks.com/LUJ/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list,
email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
