On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Brian May wrote: > >> What I really would like is a filesystem that can store a mime-type for > >> every file... That way no magic databases are required. In addition, the > >> kernel could be configured to assign default mime-types for different > >> file extensions, or something. > >> [...] > > > >Apples MacOS does nearly that (not really MIME types, but a proprietary > >code with the same intention). First I liked the idea, but after some time > >the whole thing started to suck deadly and when I work on a Mac now, one > >of the most important utilities I use is named 'Set its type!'. > > Where Macintosh fails, IMHO, is due to > > - No easy way to change the file type. > Yes.
> - The information it proprietary, and not used anywhere else. > Part of the problem. Mapping works well with WWW downloads, but bad with floppies from other OSes. > - I am not very familar with the operating system, so there might > be more points that I have missed. Perhaps there are difficulties > loading a file for one application inside another application? > Most programs are AppleThink and refuse to open files of types they don't know. A few try to determine the type based on the contents. The rest (development tools or very tiny programs mostly) bluntly ignores the type and tries to open anything. > - AFAIK, Macintosh doesn't really store "file type" but rather "which > application is this file associated with". So if you have multiple > programs that deal with the same file type, the file has to be > associated with *exactly one* application. (not sure about this) > It stores 'type' and 'creator'. Creator is the default application. > - just curious: what other times do you need to change this file type? > Seldom, but the one problem is sufficiently ennerving. [...] > > I am not proposing any "click it and wait for the magic" type think > here, that was more related to the binfmt_misc proposal, where executing > a file would automatically open the file with the correct program. Sorry, then. I understood it that way. > However, this is already done with WWW, and I don't see any problems > there (except misconfigured MIME types on some servers - something > that would benifit from my proposal, at least for HTTP). > The problem I see is that the same file can be a lot of different things at the same time. Take a C header file. Sometimes you want it to be a text file. Sometimes you want it to be a C header file (I know I can say text/C-header which makes MIME better than MacOS, but read on). Sometimes you want it to be a C++ header file. Perhaps it is also an icon saved by a program that chose to save icons so that they can be easily included as arrays into C programs. To make things even more amusing the file could be gzipped. So there may be moments the MIME type won't do the right things for you. I admit it DOES very often. Just carry a MIME type with the file is, of course, no problem. If it is used to determine possible actions on a file, it may get in your way. If Netscape or pine or something won't do the right thing, I can go and save the file and do with it whatever I want. If my OS starts do do the same strange stuff as Netscape, I have to start kinda hacking until it doesn't. If the type is never used, what's it good for? It makes life easier for Apache, OK. Yours, Bj"orn Brill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Frankfurt am Main, Germany P.S.: I hope you did not feel offended by my previous posting, as that was not my intention. I just wanted to report some non-Linux experience on problems caused by the (too?) systematic use of a system similar to MIME.
