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On Macs before 2001, that used to work! We didn't used to cram pieces of file metadata into file names. File type was stored its own slot. The hidden-ness of
by ken 7y ago
On Macs before 2001, that used to work! We didn't used to cram pieces of file metadata into file names. File type was stored its own slot. The hidden-ness of a file was stored in its own slot.
I find it amazing that despite the industry's trend in recent years away from string-typing and towards static-typing, metadata-in-file-name just won't die.
I'm all for removing old ways of doing things that were bad, when we have a better way to do them. What we have here, with type-in-extension (and visibility-in-prefix), is a legacy system for which there is so far no workable substitute (on any system, much less all systems). A person can't be fully computer literate and not know what extensions are.
UTI has some nice features, but it's still based on extensions (which are keys into the database with the information you really want). This weird halfway point, where every user has to be a "power user" of the filesystem in order to not break their own files, will live on until either types are made primary again, or until we're all reduced to using standalone "apps" with app-specific storage and we can't share any data except as the app author decided to allow.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoApple used to be the innovator in file metadata. They stopped when Steve came back because proper metadata made it more difficult to share files with Windows and Unix. And we're still stuck with crap metadata to this day.
- munk-a 7y agoGiven the implementations I've seen of file metadata outside of the extension I'm okay with this - every time OSes (especially windows) tries to strip away the extension it ends up switching the file type from being a description of "what am I" to "what can open me", I really dislike "what can open me" especially when we get into a lot of common office work file formats. Knowing the difference between .rtf, .txt, .doc and .docx is important because of the special attributes of those files - additionally I frequently run into issues with character encoding and that should be an even easier problem to solve so... my outlook is not very optimistic.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoAgreed. Apple's pre-OSX metadata system was two pieces: "What am I" and "Who created me." This was an amazingly flexible system that just worked and was the best of both worlds.