Ben Ruppel wrote:
> Exactly! Without the .xyz extensions, you have to poke around for a
> file type or go by icons.
There's no reason why a GUI shouldn't be configurable to display what
the file type is, in additon to the name and other metadata. Nautilus,
for example, allows you to just that - you can specify up to three
additional pieces metadata, including either the plain english or MIME
content-type, file size, various relevant dates, etc, to be displayed
after the icon.
Windows and MacOSX exacerbates this by hiding the filename extension by
default - effectively sweeping the problem under the carpet, instead of
dealing with it ina useful fashion.
> Personally, I'd rather see what the file
> thinks it is than what the OS thinks the file is.
Ahh, but the only reason why the system gets this wrong is because it
relies on mutable storage of a piece of metadata (the extension) to
store an immutable piece of metatata. After all, a PDF is a PDF is a PDF
(for example), right?
For a common example, say you're downloading a PDF from a web site with
a broken CGI, such that the CGI causes your web browser to think that
the PDF's filename is "download.pl" or similar, but sets the
content-type correctly to be "application/pdf". You save it to disk but
you need to remember to change the extension to be .pdf so you have a
hope of being able to open it. However, say this happens to someone's
granddad. He's just learned what a mouse is and how to use - he won't
have a hope in hell of opening that PDF.
What should have happened is that when saving the file, granddad's
browser should have noticed the content-type and set the file's type
apprpriately. Is it reasonable or appropriate for the browser to rename
the file? No. The OS the browser is running under should have a decent
mechanism for storing the file's type, which the browser should have set
appropriately when saving the file. Then grandad can just double click
on "download.pl" and have a PDF viewer pop up, instead of VisualPerl++.
Strangely, Nautilus gets this almost right. It uses filename extensions
only as a fallback (if at all, not to sure about that) and looks
directly as at the contents of the file. A kluge, but one that works
nicely in the face of broken file-type storage mechanisms. It's the
single most useful thing about the program (after stretchy-icons, of
course 8).
Mike.
--
? Mike Gratton - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
! Leader in leachate production and transmission since 1976.
> http://web.vee.net/
