Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] AppleVolumes.system - Entrys
From: Bill Stewart-Cole (bill@finan.com)
Date: Thu Dec 18 1997 - 15:37:21 EST
Tom Watson said:
>In previous email, Christian Jung wrote:
>
>>>Check your "AppleVolumes.system" file. It maps the PC suffix to a Mac
>>>type/creator. Make sure you have something like:
>>>.html TEXT MOSS
>>>This will make .html files show up as Netscape files.
>>>.gif GIFf 8BIM
>>>This will make .gif files show up a Photoshop files.
>>
>>Does anybody know where I can find information about these entrys?
>>I dont know what MOSS or 8BIM stand for. Is there a list or something
>>showing that MOSS means Netscape-File or 8BIM a Photoshop-File?
>>As a PC user I would like some information about this AppleVolumes.system
>>file be included in the Netatalk package. Think there is no info yet :(
>
>The entries shown above (TEXT, and MOSS for example) are the mac's 'type' and
>'creator' codes. The first (the type code) indicates various file types,
>application, text file, gif file, etc.. The second indicates the default
>program to launch when double clicking on the document. On the PC, this is
>usually indicated by the extension of the file.
A great explanation.
It is also useful for people not familiar with this to recognize that the
type and creator are separate tags that every file has. There is not a 1:1
mapping of type to creator, so you don't always have all files of a
specific type edited by the same application. It's a bit different from the
DOS extension system in that sense. The AppleVolumes.system list is an
attempt to map extensions roughly to a type/creator pair, something the
MacOS itself will do (with the PC Exchange list) if it knows that the
volume it is looking at is a DOS volume.
>There are some programs that show the type & creator codes for a particular
>file, but the one that I'm the happiest with is called 'Snitch'. It modifies
>the 'Get Info...' screen to show the type & creator codes, and allows
>changing
>them. If you have the program in question, create a small 'test' file and
>see
>what type/creator codes it comes up with. Apple registers creator codes so
>that they may be unique, and has defined a couple of type codes (TEXT is
>one of
>them) as 'standard'. There may be a definitive list of PC type file
>extensions
>and their mapping to type/creator codes, but I'm not sure where it is.
This is maddening, because at some point I managed to find a good list
(there can't really be a 'definitive' one) of 246 mappings and I massaged
it into a AppleVolumes file, and I cannot recall where it came from. It is
a bit long for the mailing list (or is it? ) and it is somewhat
idiosyncratic. (TEXT is BBEdit for example...)
There is also a program called "IC2netatalk" at
http://www.roelle.i3w.com/linux/netatalk/IC2netatalk/IC2netatalk.sit.hqx
which is supposed to be able to spit out a AppleVolumes.system file based
on the IC settings. I have not tried it.
A smaller (but reasonable-looking) list is at
http://www.stpt.usf.edu/staff/johnson/linux/AppleVolumes.system.txt
---- Bill Stewart-Cole This space for rent. Inquire within.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sat Dec 18 1999 - 16:28:31 EST