Creator Types?
Maybe I haven't been on a Mac long enough, or maybe I am just missing something in general. But I think this whole creator type meta data on the Mac is a load of bull. The Daring Fireball has been posting about this the last couple of days, and I have some comments/questions.
- Theres nothing I hate more than “Saving for web…” in Photoshop, double clicking that JPG, and having it open in Photoshop. Why would I want this? I want JPGs to open in the quickest application in the quickest fashionable way. The last thing I want is for my JPG to launch Photoshop and wait forever for it to open, just to view it.
- Not every file type has to open in the same application? Ok. This sounds nice at first. But why would I want some JPGs to open with one application and others open with something else. This gets horribly confusing.
- If I can set some JPGs to open with one application and others to open with something else, why do I need an “Open With…” item in my contextual menu?
- I can change the application linked to the file as well as every file of that type on my system at once with the finder. Sure this works real well.
- When a coworker sends me a file, that file opens with whatever THEY had it set to open with. I find this a bit insulting. I like my JPGs opening in Preview. Sally exported this file from Illustrator and now its opening in my copy of Illustrator. Thats rediculous. Even worse, I currently have an entire Os 9 system sitting on my Desktop from a PowerBook I backed up at work. Someone shot me a song to listen to, when I opened it, it tried to open an Os 9 version of iTunes 2 from the backup files. Pfffff.
I hate to say it but WIndows has it right with registerd applications with registered file types. JPGs open with Preview. PSD's open with Photoshop. When Photoshop doesn't exist, Preview will pick up the duties. If I want to change the application that opens a certain file type, I will go to a preference panel and re-associate that type to open with another application. This will change every single file of type X on my system. And I don't want this preference to find every single file of that type on my computer and rewrite its stupid creator type. Sure, Microsoft's implementation of it isn't that great, and changing it is a bit cryptic. But having a preference panel in System Preferences and a nice UI to make it friendly would solve that completely.
If I want to open that file type with something else later, say I actually WANT to open a JPG with Photoshop this time, I click on the file, and select “Open with…” and choose Photoshop. This method is very strait forward and user friendly.
Maybe I AM missing something. If I am, someone please clue me in. Maybe its still my Windows upbringing kicking in, but this creator type thing is starting to get on my last nerve. And yes, I DO think we should give it up.
JPEG isn’t a good example because most people don’t edit JPEGs; they’d edit the Photoshop file. Consider instead HTML files. If I save an HTML file from Safari, it’s probably a Web page that I want to save for later, so double-clicking it should open it in Safari. On the other hand, I might be writing my own HTML file in BBEdit or some other HTML editor. By default, this second file should open in the editor program, not the browser. And maybe I’m editing some HTML files by hand and some in Dreamweaver…
Also, not every file has an extension (for instance, Makefiles), and not every extension maps to a unique file type. For instance, “.m” can mean Matlab or Objective-C. Without a creator type, these files will open in the wrong program.
Comment by Anonymous — July 24, 2003 @ 11:56 am
The problems with files from someone else’s computer and with your wanting to change editors are not problems with creator types. They are problems with the current way that Mac OS X interprets them. For instance, there could be a preference to have it unassociate files that arrive through the network, and Change All could be implemented differently to overwrite creator types rather than registering a preference for unassigned files.
I think Open With should be for the exceptional case (a file I got from wherever), not the common case (a file I’ve been editing every day for the last week).
Comment by Anonymous — July 25, 2003 @ 11:51 am
I do see your point. And yes, Change All is pretty broken on Os X. I think the answer would have to be a better implementation and use of Creator Types by Os X.
Comment by Jon Maddox — July 25, 2003 @ 11:58 am
Ok, maybe you are right. Lets not take an end product file type like JPEG. Lets use your example, and HTML file.
I use these every day as well. And on my computer at work right now, i have 1/3 of my HTML/PHP/JSP files associated to BBEdit. 1/3 associated to Safari and the rest associated to GoLive. While I understand where this can be convenient for a work in progress. This is such a pain in the ass when coming form SOMEONE elses computer, especially when i do an Open With… and I have to force Os X to let GoLive open a PHP file, Yes Jaggy, it CAN open that file.
The other thing is what about if i change my editors. Back before Jaguar, I used Dreamweaver as a GUI editor because GoLive was such a dog at the time. Well, I hate Dreamweaver, and I wanted to go back, but it took a format before my system unassociated my files with that application. The “change all” didn’t work.
As for files that don’t have extensions. Sorry, in these days, all files have extensions. All files being handeled in a Desktop environment, and thats where all of this is going on.
Makefiles are all in the shell, as well as all the other files with no extension. This is a null point.
Like I said before. If I need to open a file in another application, thats why Jaguar brought us the Open With… dialog.
Comment by jon — July 25, 2003 @ 12:16 pm
So really your rant is about OS X’s Change All command not always working - which I agree with, but you made it sound like you have a problem with the entire way things are done.
Comment by asan102 — July 26, 2003 @ 9:59 am
does anybody, anywhere, know how to save a jpeg file in photoshop so that when i or anyone else i send these files to view them, they open on the desktop in Preview without having to open photoshop each time for each jpeg image?
i have searched the net but cant the
find answer to what might be in fact an embarassingly simple question.
if you know i would be very grateful.
Comment by vincent — August 19, 2003 @ 10:51 am
if you select the file and then hit command-i or right click and hit Get Info, you will be able to permanently set the application that will open the file. Check the Open With section of Get Info. You can also choose to change all Jpegs to this application, But this rarely works the way it should.
Hope that helps…
Comment by Jon Maddox — August 19, 2003 @ 10:57 am
have you ever had the problem when you’re saving a picture from the internet and it doesn’t show up as jpeg? where it won’t unless you add the “.jpg” at the end of the picture description? my comp use to save pictures w/o me having to do that, now i have to add the “.jpg” or it won’t save the pictures as a jpeg. anybody have any ideas?
Comment by Anonymous — October 7, 2003 @ 9:02 am
I too find Creator and Type information a big pain in the neck. Look at all the different TEXT types!
When you say Creator XCEL, Type TEXT and your file opens with MS Excel, everyone claps because the file is associated with the right application. But wait a second: I said SAVE AS A TEXT FILE! I expect the file to open as a text file. If I wanted it to be an xcel file I’d save it as such.
The other beef I have is from a programmer’s perspective. How do you map all of these creator and type codes to something useful for another platform? I have no problem taking _most_ *nix and DOS/Windows files to the Mac, but trying to go the other way is a nightmare.
The implications of this go far beyond OS X launching Classic, or your file opening with the wrong editor. Just look at your Email apps. If you try sending your CREATOR/TYPECODE file as an attachment, using something other than Apple’s own encoding schemes, the file type is lost forever. This means that the STANDARD internet content-transfer-encoding types are not enough for Apple– you need to have extra Apple-specific encoders (AppleSingle/AppleDouble). note: I’m talking about a file without an extension, a la OS9.
All that said, it gets worse; Apple will not publish a list of Creator and Type codes. They keep them secret! For a developer, trying to make their product behave properly whilst playing with other OS’s, this is a problem. It’s about time they OFFICIALLY stopped supporting creator and type. It’s going to happen sooner or later.
That’s my rant. lol.
Will
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Comment by hanni — March 15, 2004 @ 4:47 am