[SLUG] Associating filenames
Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or similar, with applications. I have been fiddling with Staroffice and that works OK, but I am curious as to whether the ability exists in Linux on a broader basis, more to do with such associations in Netscrape. Howard who hasn't got his .sig working in Staroffice yet -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or similar, with applications. I have been fiddling with Staroffice and that works OK, but I am curious as to whether the ability exists in Linux on a broader basis, more to do with such associations in Netscrape. No, that's regarded as userland stuff so it's done on a per-manager basis by file managers and browsers. This is arguably a weakness of the Unix filesystem model, it delegates these issues to applications. Although Linus has said that he would like to see support for multipart files a la Mac's forks. This is actually stronger than matching by extension, it effectively creates file typing. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
Howard Lowndes said something along the lines of: Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or similar, with applications. I have been fiddling with Staroffice and that works OK, but I am curious as to whether the ability exists in Linux on a broader basis, more to do with such associations in Netscrape. Where are you making the associations (or want to)? File managers such as GMC, Nautilus and EFM will do this for you as part of their mime support, usually using magic2mime (and related utilities or libraries). Here's yet another area where the MacOS had us in 85. Intrinsic metadata. DOS/Windows had easily human-stuffupable "metadata" with file extensions, UNIX has nothing (apart from what the file appears to be). BeOS however, has a very, very heavy focus on metadata (the filesystem is designed to have almost unlimited metadata extensibility). With Linux, you either rely on your applications (generally the file manager types), or have to work it out yourself. - Jeff -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://linux.conf.au/ -- Ye shall be cursed to fall in love so easily, and yet be so cold of heart as never to express it. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
marty said something along the lines of: which begs the question, what did they do to bolt metadata onto the freebsd core for OSX ?? Umm... There was a really good article about this going around a while back. Fairly interesting, it covered all the hacks they went through to combine the two systems. Bundles are an extension to the original fork/stream idea with Mac files, allowing pretty much entire packages of software to operate as one "file". Some of it was nifty, some just dirty hackery. Definitely linked from Slashdot, so have a search on there. :) Oh, and the Mac association system is a lot more flexible than people give it credit for (and could be hacked over to support mime, etc). - Jeff -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://linux.conf.au/ -- Ye shall be cursed to fall in love so easily, and yet be so cold of heart as never to express it. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Howard Lowndes generated: Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or similar, with applications. I have been fiddling with Staroffice and that works OK, but I am curious as to whether the ability exists in Linux on a broader basis, more to do with such associations in Netscrape. I remember reading some stuff on this, in the binfmt_misc module docs. IIRC, java binary support is no different from associating .txt with vi. However, no-one (i've heard of) uses it, and the association tends to be implemented in GUIs. -- No, I was looking for warez. The pornography was just a useful byproduct. -- Dave Coote -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or
similar, with applications.
One of the things with Unix is that, unlike dos with it's 8,3 rule
the "extension" is totally arbitary. Originally there was a 14 char
limit to file names and whether you had a dot in there was entirely
up to the user. Thus the idea of typing files by their extension
was historically pretty much a foreign concept to Unix.
Currently there are at least three methods in use,
1. educated guess about file type based on content ("file" command)
2. explicit meta data in file (eg "#!/usr/bin/perl" )
3. .ext in the filename (Mime types)
All have their failings.
Are there any other methods others know of?
--
Pete
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
RE: [SLUG] Associating filenames
The Apple format which was to create a filename of the same type but hidden
and had the MIME info in it... eerrr yuk!.
thanks,
George Vieira
Network Administrator
http://www.citadelcomputer.com.au
PGP Fingerprint : 43DC 92AC 1A82 27B2 E97B 52F1 B60F 301A 38A9 A10C
PGP KeyID: 0x38A9A10C
-Original Message-
From: Peter Rundle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 8:18 AM
To: SLUG
Subject: Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
Is there any ability in Linux to associate filename extensions, or
similar, with applications.
One of the things with Unix is that, unlike dos with it's 8,3 rule
the "extension" is totally arbitary. Originally there was a 14 char
limit to file names and whether you had a dot in there was entirely
up to the user. Thus the idea of typing files by their extension
was historically pretty much a foreign concept to Unix.
Currently there are at least three methods in use,
1. educated guess about file type based on content ("file" command)
2. explicit meta data in file (eg "#!/usr/bin/perl" )
3. .ext in the filename (Mime types)
All have their failings.
Are there any other methods others know of?
--
Pete
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
The Apple format which was to create a filename of the same type but hidden and had the MIME info in it... eerrr yuk!. Apple's forks actually predated MIME but the metadata concept is a well-known one. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:17:43 +1100, Peter Rundle wrote:
Currently there are at least three methods in use,
1. educated guess about file type based on content ("file" command)
2. explicit meta data in file (eg "#!/usr/bin/perl" )
3. .ext in the filename (Mime types)
All have their failings.
Are there any other methods others know of?
What about OS/2's extended attributes?
Regards
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
I too couldn't believe that R didn't know what MIME is so the comment was somewhat cryptic (8-) I can't comment about SO 5.1 and its understanding of MIME, but it certainly understands about .doc .xls extensions etc. cos I have had a look at using Starmail as an alternative to Netscape Messanger. -- Howard. __ LANNet Computing Associates http://www.lannet.com.au On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Rachel Polanskis wrote: BTW, StarOffice doesn't know about MIME types - at least from the command line. I would like to have something in my mailcap for .doc or .sdw files but it doesn't work with 5.1. Does anyone know if 5.2 has overcome this deficiency? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Re: [SLUG] Associating filenames
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Jeff Waugh wrote: which begs the question, what did they do to bolt metadata onto the freebsd core for OSX ?? Umm... There was a really good article about this going around a while back. Fairly interesting, it covered all the hacks they went through to combine the two systems. As far as my reading of it went was that they dropped the feature. As far as my personal opinion goes: file(1) does a reasonable job anyway. Who needs file extensions? I don't like them because windoze gets it wong too often. tom. Consultant AUSSECPhone: 61 4 1768 2202 339 Blaxland Rd., Ryde NSW 2112 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
