Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 01:57:41 +0100 From: petzi@zit.th-darmstadt.de (Michael Beckmann) To: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Macintosh filesystem features Message-ID: <v02130501acfbbaed0895@[130.83.177.7]>
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>> I was reflecting about a featute that the MacOS has and which >> I did not see on other OSs: >> >> The DATA and the RESOURCE fork. >> ... > I think Apple probably regrets this "feature", because: They don't regret it. It's a real Macintosh advantage. They're even going to add another fork to files in the next major MacOS release. > - Most files, have a resource fork and an empty data fork >(executables), or a data fork and an empty resource fork (documents), Most files have both, except for something like TIFF or JPEG. > - Makes file transfers to other systems difficult All Macintosh communications programs have automatic facilities to keep both forks intact, when you transfer a Mac file to another machine. OK, in some cases you may have to know a bit about the encoding schemes; for example that you cannot upload a GIF image for a Web page using MacBinary II encoding. But in most cases transferring a Mac file to another machine resp. file-system is a no-brainer. >> What I'm asking myself (and file system experts) if this >> could be implemented in FreeBSD, perhaps as an addition/extension >> to the existing filesystems. >> >> When designing GUIs, window managers and such it would be nice if this >> resource/data dualism would be hidden rather than having sort of >> container files or other methods like .hidden files or files >> starting with special characters (%). > > Shouldn't these things be stuffed into the executable file? On Macs, Absolutely not. This is a feature that makes the Mac really stand out in this regard. You can do miraculous things with ResEdit, which you could never do if the additional Resources were kept in the executable binary. But you still have one single file to double-click and launch; easy to handle and easy to understand for non-computer-experts. >all code and resources is stuffed into the resource fork of the >executable anyways, and the data fork is empty. This is wrong. PowerPC binaries are usually kept in tha data fork, while the Resources are all in the Resource Fork. Michael
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