Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Wilse on January 28, 2005, 12:00:51 AM
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Not really a problem. More of a minor niggle:
I transferred some pictures from my camera to my A1, renamed them and emailed them to a WinXP machine.
On that end they wouldn't open until I gave every file a .jpg extension.
Is there a setting in XP that will fix this?
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Is there a setting in XP that will fix this?
Not particularly.
Windows recognizes filetypes by the extension. If the filename has no extension, Windows Explorer (desktop) is lost as to how to handle the file. Windows doesn't examine a file header (like an Amiga) or a resource fork (like a Mac). The only thing Windows Explorer does is read the filename extension and look up how to launch the cooresponding application for handling that filetype from the registry.
There is probably a patch or hack you can apply to Windows Explorer to add file header examination... But most hacks of that form usually introduce more problems than they are worth. Just make sure you preserve the filename extensions when you rename stuff. It's easier in the long run.
Or, if you really MUST have some datafiles without filetype extensions, you can open the app yourself and then pick the datafiles from the "File > Open" menu.
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@ Wilse
I have a very nice batch renaming utility I can email you, if you PM me your email addy. It may help you with other things too, because it does prefixes etc.
Otherwise you will have to use the command prompt:
(having navigated to the directory with the pictures inside):
ren * *.jpg
Ignore me if that is how you renamed the files anyway :-)
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Is there a setting in XP that will fix this?
:roflmao::roflmao:
oh, sorry.....that was just too funny.
as has already been pointed out, windows, being the silly OS it is can only know what a file is from it's extention. duh!
ACDSee is one program that actually uses the amiga method of looking the file header. I use that instead of windows exploder to view files. Apparently, it was written by at least one former amiga programmer which is one reason it can see IFF's. It can also open up Lha's. It also sees the camera info in the files from my Fuji. (EXIF or whatever it's called.)
I've been ttrasfering files between different OS's for years and years and I have simply gotten into the habit of naming my files with extentions, no spaces and with as small a name as possible. because you have to assume windows is dumb.
I use Dopus magellian to rename files, but you can also use
utilities (http://www.onyxsoft.se/sub-utils.shtml) from here.
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Edit: found a link (http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Download.php) to download that renaming utility.
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This "feature" of Windows has been pointed out many times before. You can have a bit of fun re-naming a reasonably sized .jpeg to .doc and see the poor sod open it up in Word, tied my mates machine up for ages - oh how we laughed :-D
-Cecelia: Didnt know about ACDsee, but DirOpus8 for windows ALWAYS opens it correctly, no matter what suffix is used (or indeed if none is used at all). Just goes to show what quality of programmers the Amiga has always had - past and present.
-jd
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Just a note that some filetypes don't need extensions in Windows. For instance, Office documents haven't needed them since Office 2000 (ie. File.doc and File will both open in Word). The technology is there, but alas it's not available for ever filetype yet. It would be nice if other operating systems would support filetypes like Amiga does. It makes it a hell of a lot easier.
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by adolescent
Just a note that some filetypes don't need extensions in Windows. For instance, Office documents haven't needed them since Office 2000 (ie. File.doc and File will both open in Word). The technology is there, but alas it's not available for ever filetype yet. It would be nice if other operating systems would support filetypes like Amiga does. It makes it a hell of a lot easier.
This is true, but this is only for docs created within word itself. Opening a deliberately mis-named file in word causes havoc (try mis-naming a small avi/mpeg to see).
-jd
ps: just found out my version of Word2002 supplied with my Toshiba laptop had a document size limit of 32MB - never seen that previously. IIrc Word used to have a page limit (65536?)
-jd
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jd997uk wrote:
This is true, but this is only for docs created within word itself. Opening a deliberately mis-named file in word causes havoc (try mis-naming a small avi/mpeg to see).
In Word 2003 it simply brings up the standard conversion dialog. It thinks my JPEGs are Vietnamese.
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Well i read part of this thread. pardon me if someone already mentioned this.
It has to be written into the code/program.
If I use explorer to browse to the file then no... it aint gonna work. The mechanism to discover the file type is not dependant on the program which views the file. It's kinda like sending a dumb blonde to find the file for "Kendell Jackson" when the name of the file is actually "Kindell Jackson Wine." In this case, it requires a blonde smart enough to add the "Wine" part when she see's the "Kindel Jackson". Maybe, our smart blonde could look INSIDE the file to make sure that's what we wanted.
This can be a tough task for most programmers because there are so many formats and in order for explorer to be smart enough, it has to know what to look for inside the file. The important thing for programmers is to reduce the instructions in a program and make them focus on the task at hand. Extensions allow explorer to do this.
Now tell a blond to file her finger nails and you have gotten something done.
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Meh, I think that filenames are too limiting these days. Meta data is where it is at. BeOS had metadata. I think MacOS X is getting it in the next release.
Instead of the filesystem just having an entry for the filename, and the OS either having to decipher the type from the filename, or from the file itself, the filesystem would provide type information itself.
instead of: CompanyAccounts.xls
You'd have:
Displayed Name: Company Accounts
Type: Excel File
Creator: Billy Bob Thornton
Project: Company
and the other things like creation date, updated date, etc that already exist
MP3s could store all the metadata in the filesystem, instead of in a wrapper on the file, for example.
Amiga could do this with the .info files, as that could handle things like that.
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This is one thing that has always bothered my about Windows. But what not place all of the jpegs in a folder, start the command prompt, goto into the folder and type "ren *.* *.jpg". It's wuick and easy.
As for a *smart* program (unlike explorer) that understands files by their content and not their extention see TrIDNet (http://mark0.net/soft-tridnet-e.html).
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BeOS had metadata.
This can be troublesome if it's done wrong, though. A good idea on paper but very hard to get right in practice. If you put the metadata in the file itself, you're basicly just putting on a big header. If you put it in the filesystem, you're going to get hosed sooner or later. If you put it in a seperate file, like a ".info", you really need to have a good version control system in place. I can't tell you how much grief I put up with when moving Mac files between non-Mac computers.
I hated taking newspaper submissions from Mac people who wrote files on PC disks, and wouldn't open when I put them in the Macs in our office. You can't double-click, and if they are even visible in the file requesters, the applications keep complaining that they are the wrong file format. Sometimes computers are too smart for their own good. (Mind you, my experiences are with MacOS 8.5. God, I HATED that OS!!!)
How does BeOS do it? I haven't seen a single implementation yet that works on anything but the computer that actually generates the files, which isn't terribly helpful for documents, anyway.
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Oh yeah, and it's worth noting that most JPEG files are actually JFIF files, which have different headers than EXIF JPEGs. Technically, the ".jpg" and ".jpeg" extensions are wrong. :-)
This is noticeable in many programs that expect JFIF formats. Load up an EXIF from a digital camera, and the picture will either show up blank or crash the program. We had this problem a lot on our Kodak workstations. I was furious at Kodak at first, but when I started doing a lot of image recognition in my web scripts, I started to realize just how many different JPEG "standards" are out there -- or really, the lack of them.
Yet another thing we can blame on "extensible" formats. I prefer an actual standard that doesn't change, because a bad standard is at least a standard. Metadata can be very, very troublesome, and is usually more marketing hype and feature-pushing than a real help.
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ACDSee is one program that actually uses the amiga method of looking the file header. I use that instead of windows exploder to view files. Apparently, it was written by at least one former amiga programmer which is one reason it can see IFF's. It can also open up Lha's. It also sees the camera info in the files from my Fuji. (EXIF or whatever it's called.)
Not saying that ACDSee lacks features, but every time I have installed it I've uninstalled it the same day. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago the application suddenly became waaaay to slow for me to even think about using. It takes forever to startup... and considering it is a applicating mainly for viewing pictures I find that somewhat strange, on border of being ridicilous. It's a shame, really, considering the power it has as an application.
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@ Leger
You would get a lot of startup speed increase if you change the default settings. For instance IIRC it is setup by default to refresh all the thumbnails. I also found that later versions of ACDSee were slower, but you can trim the settings to get back a lot of speed.
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Wilse wrote:Is there a setting in XP that will fix this?
Not familiar with XP, but in previous versions of Windows I was able to change the "Registered File Types" options (within Folder Options), and have added "JPEG" as a recognised filetype extension, and all the actions the same as "JPG".
Perhaps this still works - although I daresay that it's hidden somewhere...
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@ Narcea
"...type "ren *.* *.jpg". It's wuick and easy..."
Well I think my syntax was better, because the chances are that Wilse's pictures coming from his Amiga would have NO suffixes at all. Your command there wouldn't rename anything, if that was the case.
@ Chunder
I know what you are getting at:
"Windows needs to know what application created the file, in order to open it: do you want to use the web service for help, or select the program from a list" (just typing from memory, not got exact wording)
Now the only value of this is if Wilse had some kind of suffix on his filenames, for example IFF (which he won't, because they are jpegs)
But let's say for instance the suffix was .jx
When the requester I've quoted comes up, he chooses select program from list, then he selects ACDSee from that list AND CHECKS THE BOX 'always use this program to open that filetype.' From now on, every .jx file will open straight away in ACDSee. It gets a different icon from a jpeg, but it still opens.
From there, he could use 'Browse' in ACDSee, select all (CTR-A) and select format convert from the menu, tick apply to all, and then the problem is solved.
But REN * *.jpg is probably quicker and neater
Edit: I used that command to rename my mp3s when they migrated from the 4000 to the PC...REN * *.mp3
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Legerdemain wrote:
Not saying that ACDSee lacks features, but every time I have installed it I've uninstalled it the same day. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago the application suddenly became waaaay to slow for me to even think about using. It takes forever to startup... and considering it is a applicating mainly for viewing pictures I find that somewhat strange, on border of being ridicilous. It's a shame, really, considering the power it has as an application.
mostly out of laziness, i'm still using ACDSee version 4.
never had a problem like that.
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I use GQview :)~
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@all:
Thank you all kindly.
I know even less about Windows than I do about AmigaDOS, so that was all very informative. :-D
I have to do this quite rarely, so this time I'll just get the git with winXP machine to name them himself.
Cheers guys,
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Legerdemain: Not saying that ACDSee lacks features, but every time I have installed it I've uninstalled it the same day. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago the application suddenly became waaaay to slow for me to even think about using. It takes forever to startup... and considering it is a applicating mainly for viewing pictures I find that somewhat strange, on border of being ridicilous. It's a shame, really, considering the power it has as an application.
No kidding! It's only slow when you go into browser mode, though. I'm still using version 2.21 and refuse to upgrade because of the way they ruined the responsiveness of the app.
I think it started getting slow because of the thumbnail caching features. Since version 3.0, the app saves thumbnails in your temp folder and manages an internal database. You can see hundreds of 0-byte files in your temp folder after using it a few times. Leaving tons of blank files all over the place and never cleaning them up really shows how bad the code has gotten. I don't know why developers think it's OK to use the temp folder as an archive or cache! It's called "temp" for a reason.
Then again, if you think ACDSee is slow, you should try out the thumbnail browser built into Photoshop CS. It's HORRIBLE!!! Painfully slow, the GUI stinks, and the image quality is bad, to boot.
I use Win2K, Photoshop 5.5, ACDSee 2.21, and won't upgrade any of them. Funny how everything seems to work fine, and then they start messing with good formulas and ruin everything!
cecilia: never had a problem like that.
Wierd. I've had major delays opening the browser mode with versions 3, 4, and 6 on all systems.
In general, image applications tend to be awful with responsiveness, and are really dumb when it comes to image analysis so data can be saved in an appropriate format. The image libraries I use with my web scripts, GD and Imagemagick, are pretty sucky. I should write my own, but I don't know much about C.