Re: 'GIF'

Mike Barnes wrote:

In alt.usage.english, Donna Richoux wrote:

Mike Barnes <november2005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


In alt.usage.english, JF wrote:

X-No-Archive: yes
In message <1h6fita.1out5alqzvi2oN%trio@xxxxxxxxxx>, Donna Richoux
<trio@xxxxxxxxxx> writes

Mike Barnes <november2005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


TAWAG but I'm guessing that you don't routinely have several files with
the same information in different formats. My hard drive is stuffed with
folders containing groups of files with the same name but different
extensions (like "How to find us.psd" and "How to find us.jpg"; "Walk
Away.wma" and "Walk away.mp3"). What's the Mac equivalent of that
arrangement? I've never used a Mac.


You can save the same document in different formats, but if they're
placed in the same folder, they have to have different names. You get a
warning to make the second name different.

For me, that would take some getting used to. 

I don't do a lot of graphics work, but as I recall it's not a problem...
Yes, I just tested the "Graphics Converter" program that specializes in
changing formats of art files. As you change the intended format, the
dialog box automatically suggests a title that includes the matching
extension letters:

 untitled.JPG
 untitled.PICT
 untitled.TIFF
 etc.

So the titles can wind up looking a lot like what Windows does. The
extension letters are optional, though -- they're not required for the
Mac to recognize the intended format.



That's good - obviously the authors of that program have anticipated the
problem. I wonder how often that happens.

Also... in Windows I can change, for a given extension, which program is
used when I open it. For instance, I have several browsers, and I can
specify which one is used when I open a file with an HTML extension. (Of
course, it's possible, by a variety of means, to use some *other*
program: I'm talking only about the default.) On a Mac, how would I
specify that I wanted to use Firefox instead of IE to open HTML files?
Or Nullsoft Winamp rather than Microsoft Windows Media Player to open
WMA audio files? (Or something like that: I have no idea whether those
programs are available to the Mac user.) Is there some "file type"
field, not part of the file name, that I would specify?

If you take picture formats, eg jpg, html or various text formats, there are lots of programs that can open them. As I said before, a Mac will normally try to use the program that saved it, but you can either open the program you want to use and open the file from there or, since I have a non-Mac mouse, you can just right click and click "Open with" (I think this can also be done with a Mac mouse using the Option or the Cmd key). 

My very first thought, though, when you said "make the second name
different" was "but I'd also want to make the first name different".
Perhaps I've an over-tidy mind, but if one file name indicated the file
format, I'd want them both to. That's where it would start getting
messy.

I don't understand this "first/second name" business. If I need to know the file is "pdf", then I use the pdf extension. Mostly, the format is of no interest to me, so long as the file opens and I can insert it into a Word or Excel document. 

I'm enjoying this peek into Mac world. Obviously it all *works*, but
sometimes it's hard to see how. Whoever came up with the idea of the
filename extension is one of my heroes.

Still seems old-fashioned to me, but some of the Mac things I used to love have become old-fashioned too. Come to think of it, I really liked Word 4 [sigh].

--
Rob Bannister
.

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