On Jun 2, 2010, at 3:13 PM, William Robb wrote: > Now I realize that Paul won't believe me, but a few years ago I was talking > about computers with an acquaintance who is both a Mac user and an idiot. I > mentioned something about file extensions and he didn't have a clue what I > was talking about. > He said (and I paraphrase) "we don't use file extensions on Macs, we just > click the icon and it opens. > Apparently Macs just know what the file is by magic....
You're half right. For files that you get from elsewhere (eg download from the net or copied off an external drive) the system uses the extension to figure out what to open it with. There's really no practical alternative to this. For something that was created on a Mac, the system stores extra data that associates the file with the program that created it. That can be both a blessing and a curse... and it's the reason why Windows users will see lots of small files starting with "._" on shared drives. You can associate files individually to applications if you want. So you can have your jpg files open in Preview by default but associate a couple of big ones to Photoshop. And you override all this by just dragging the file into the app, or right-click the icon and choose the app from the list under "Open With." Dave -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
