Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Steve Rickaby 
Someone posted here recently to say that 'all their old FrameMaker files had 
become Word files'.

I've just had course to look at some year 2000 files in FrameMaker 4 format. 
These have a '.doc' extent, but open just fine in FrameMaker 7. I have no idea 
why they are '.doc', but this might have given rise to the confusion  in 
question.

-- 
Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]
___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com

Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

Re: Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Paul Wilbraham 
I can recall, in the early days of FrameMaker, all FrameMaker documents were
given the .doc suffix.

Later, this changed to .fm, maybe around version 3 or 4.

--Paul Wilbraham


 On 20 March 2013 at 16:37 Steve Rickaby srick...@wordmongers.demon.co.uk
 wrote:


 Someone posted here recently to say that 'all their old FrameMaker files had
 become Word files'.

 I've just had course to look at some year 2000 files in FrameMaker 4 format.
 These have a '.doc' extent, but open just fine in FrameMaker 7. I have no idea
 why they are '.doc', but this might have given rise to the confusion in
 question.

 --
 Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]
 ___


 You are currently subscribed to framers as paul.wilbra...@m-ais.com.

 Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

 To unsubscribe send a blank email to
 framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
 or visit
 http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/paul.wilbraham%40m-ais.com

 Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
 http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com

Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

RE: Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) 
 And the situation is more complex again on Mac, where the file type byte is 
 retained in some files for backward compatibility with pre-OS X OS versions, 
 which built an invisible database that matched files with their home 
 application, but OS X (Unix under the covers) also takes a file name extent 
 into consideration. (And on OS X you can have up to half a dozen apps that 
 can open, say, a PDF.)

Hmmm  I would have thought (but not certain) that the current OS X release 
did not use the file name extension to select the app for opening PDF files. It 
_probably_ looks at the magic bytes just like other UNIX systems.

Which, in the case of PDF files, would be the leading bytes %PDF- inside the 
files.

A question though: if you have more than one app available to open a PDF file, 
how does OS X actually select which app to use?

In Windows, there is one default for each extension, but you can override that 
with a right-mouse-click on the file in Explorer, followed by a Open With ... 
and then select/specify the app.

Z

___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com

Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

RE: Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Steve Rickaby 
At 12:41 -0700 20/3/13, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote:

  And the situation is more complex again on Mac,... you can have up to half 
  a dozen apps that can open, say, a PDF.)

Hmmm  I would have thought (but not certain) that the current OS X release 
did not use the file name extension to select the app for opening PDF files. 
It _probably_ looks at the magic bytes just like other UNIX systems.

Not sure but can check. What I do know is that the file type byte can be 
honored, but you can also set a chosen app for all files of a specific type 
(identified how, one wonders) - but that it is not always 100% foolproof. But 
I'm several OS X versions behind the leading edge anyway.

This sort of stuff makes my head hurt these days, but these links might help, 
if anyone cares:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/understanding_utis/understand_utis_intro/understand_utis_intro.html

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1762250seqNum=6

Which, in the case of PDF files, would be the leading bytes %PDF- inside the 
files.

Maybe.

A question though: if you have more than one app available to open a PDF file, 
how does OS X actually select which app to use?

The user procedure is set the default app for a file is to do a 'get info' on a 
file of the type in question. That displays a dialog that allows you to choose 
the app to open that file when clicked, with an option to extend your choice to 
all files of that type. Or you can just drag the file onto the chosen app's 
icon in the Dock. I cited PDFs because it's probably the file type with most 
launch options on the average professional's Mac: Preview (Apple's default PDF 
reader), Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Illustrator, GraphicConverter (a shareware 
graphic file manipulator), PDFPen, and so on...)

In Windows, there is one default for each extension, but you can override that 
with a right-mouse-click on the file in Explorer, followed by a Open With 
... and then select/specify the app.

Yup, I use Windows as well. I guess there is no one 'best' way to handle this 
sort of thing, and OS X can be cumbersome in this regard - like, you really 
really don't want Illustrator to open a PDF when you click on it unless you 
*really* want it to, and so on.

-- 
Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]
___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com

Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

Re: Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Robert Lauriston 
Conflicts between extensions were more common in those days. FileMaker
for Windows originally had the same .fm extension as FrameMaker.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Steve Rickaby
srick...@wordmongers.demon.co.uk wrote:
 The only question remains as to why Word and FrameMaker documents had the 
 same extent, when their internal format was so different.
___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com

Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Steve Rickaby 
Someone posted here recently to say that 'all their old FrameMaker files had 
become Word files'.

I've just had course to look at some year 2000 files in FrameMaker 4 format. 
These have a '.doc' extent, but open just fine in FrameMaker 7. I have no idea 
why they are '.doc', but this might have given rise to the confusion  in 
question.

-- 
Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Paul Wilbraham 
I can recall, in the early days of FrameMaker, all FrameMaker documents were
given the .doc suffix.

Later, this changed to .fm, maybe around version 3 or 4.

--Paul Wilbraham


> On 20 March 2013 at 16:37 Steve Rickaby 
> wrote:
>
>
> Someone posted here recently to say that 'all their old FrameMaker files had
> become Word files'.
>
> I've just had course to look at some year 2000 files in FrameMaker 4 format.
> These have a '.doc' extent, but open just fine in FrameMaker 7. I have no idea
> why they are '.doc', but this might have given rise to the confusion in
> question.
>
> --
> Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]
> ___
>
>
> You are currently subscribed to framers as paul.wilbraham at m-ais.com.
>
> Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com.
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com
> or visit
> http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/paul.wilbraham%40m-ais.com
>
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) 
Yes! Whoever saved the files (in your case) from FrameMaker chose to use a 
".doc" extension, for whatever reason. I guess they figured these were 
"documents"! :)

In general, the file name extension _usually_ does not mean anything to an 
application - I could save an Excel file with an .fm extension and it would 
fail to open properly in FrameMaker! Not surprising.

And, I could also save a FrameMaker document with a ".xls" extension and still 
open it correctly in FrameMaker, although Excel would barf trying to read it!

There are interesting exceptions to this, of course. For example, Excel can 
open files with different content. A file with a ".csv" extension is assumed to 
contain comma-delimited text. A file with a ".txt" extension containing CSV 
formatted info can be treated differently by Excel than the _same_ file with a 
".csv" extension - this can lead to some interesting confusions.

The point is that Windows makes assumptions about which application to use to 
open a file based on their extension - that is their useful purpose. And 
applications can make assumptions about the file content based on the extension.

Also, a file ending in ".com" or ".exe" is assumed to be an executable - a 
FrameMaker or Word file renamed in this manner would simply fail to execute in 
Windows or DOS!

Z

Historical side-bar: this treatment is quite different in UNIX systems, where 
extensions do not have any special meaning. So, files can contain information 
that identify the content, thus allowing for the existence of the "file" 
command ... this command looks at this identifier byte in any file to tell you 
what the file is likely to be, although it also makes assumptions by looking at 
content _within_ the file (for ASCII text files for example):

# file /usr/bin/ls
/usr/bin/ls:ELF 32-bit MSB executable SPARC Version 1, dynamically linked, 
stripped
# file /usr/bin/file
/usr/bin/file:  ELF 32-bit MSB executable SPARC Version 1, dynamically linked, 
stripped
# file /etc/hosts
/etc/hosts: ascii text

By the way, the known identification bytes are listed in the file /etc/magic 
... :)

-Original Message-
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Steve Rickaby
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 9:37 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Old FrameMaker versions

Someone posted here recently to say that 'all their old FrameMaker files had 
become Word files'.

I've just had course to look at some year 2000 files in FrameMaker 4 format. 
These have a '.doc' extent, but open just fine in FrameMaker 7. I have no idea 
why they are '.doc', but this might have given rise to the confusion  in 
question.

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Steve Rickaby 
At 17:35 + 20/3/13, Paul Wilbraham wrote:

>I can recall, in the early days of FrameMaker, all FrameMaker documents were 
>given the .doc suffix.
> 
>Later, this changed to .fm, maybe around version 3 or 4.

That would explain it, then. The only question remains as to why Word and 
FrameMaker documents had the same extent, when their internal format was so 
different.

If Max Hoffmann is reading this, maybe he can explain?

At 10:53 -0700 20/3/13, Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net) wrote:

>Historical side-bar: this treatment is quite different in UNIX systems, where 
>extensions do not have any special meaning.

And the situation is more complex again on Mac, where the file type byte is 
retained in some files for backward compatibility with pre-OS X OS versions, 
which built an invisible database that matched files with their home 
application, but OS X (Unix under the covers) also takes a file name extent 
into consideration. (And on OS X you can have up to half a dozen apps that can 
open, say, a PDF.)

-- 
Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) 
> And the situation is more complex again on Mac, where the file type byte is 
> retained in some files for backward compatibility with pre-OS X OS versions, 
> which built an invisible database that matched files with their home 
> application, but OS X (Unix under the covers) also takes a file name extent 
> into consideration. (And on OS X you can have up to half a dozen apps that 
> can open, say, a PDF.)

Hmmm  I would have thought (but not certain) that the current OS X release 
did not use the file name extension to select the app for opening PDF files. It 
_probably_ looks at the magic bytes just like other UNIX systems.

Which, in the case of PDF files, would be the leading bytes "%PDF-" inside the 
files.

A question though: if you have more than one app available to open a PDF file, 
how does OS X actually select which app to use?

In Windows, there is one default for each extension, but you can override that 
with a right-mouse-click on the file in Explorer, followed by a "Open With ..." 
and then select/specify the app.

Z

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Steve Rickaby 
At 12:41 -0700 20/3/13, Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net) wrote:

> > And the situation is more complex again on Mac,... you can have up to half 
> > a dozen apps that can open, say, a PDF.)
>
>Hmmm  I would have thought (but not certain) that the current OS X release 
>did not use the file name extension to select the app for opening PDF files. 
>It _probably_ looks at the magic bytes just like other UNIX systems.

Not sure but can check. What I do know is that the file type byte can be 
honored, but you can also set a chosen app for all files of a specific type 
(identified how, one wonders) - but that it is not always 100% foolproof. But 
I'm several OS X versions behind the leading edge anyway.

This sort of stuff makes my head hurt these days, but these links might help, 
if anyone cares:





>Which, in the case of PDF files, would be the leading bytes "%PDF-" inside the 
>files.

Maybe.

>A question though: if you have more than one app available to open a PDF file, 
>how does OS X actually select which app to use?

The user procedure is set the default app for a file is to do a 'get info' on a 
file of the type in question. That displays a dialog that allows you to choose 
the app to open that file when clicked, with an option to extend your choice to 
all files of that type. Or you can just drag the file onto the chosen app's 
icon in the Dock. I cited PDFs because it's probably the file type with most 
launch options on the average professional's Mac: Preview (Apple's default PDF 
reader), Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Illustrator, GraphicConverter (a shareware 
graphic file manipulator), PDFPen, and so on...)

>In Windows, there is one default for each extension, but you can override that 
>with a right-mouse-click on the file in Explorer, followed by a "Open With 
>..." and then select/specify the app.

Yup, I use Windows as well. I guess there is no one 'best' way to handle this 
sort of thing, and OS X can be cumbersome in this regard - like, you really 
really don't want Illustrator to open a PDF when you click on it unless you 
*really* want it to, and so on.

-- 
Steve [Trim e-mails: use less disk, use less power, use less planet]

Old FrameMaker versions

2013-03-20 Thread Robert Lauriston 
Conflicts between extensions were more common in those days. FileMaker
for Windows originally had the same .fm extension as FrameMaker.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Steve Rickaby
 wrote:
> The only question remains as to why Word and FrameMaker documents had the 
> same extent, when their internal format was so different.