Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!milne
From: milne@ics.uci.edu (Alastair Milne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Finder file information
Keywords: Get Info
Message-ID: <19085@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 4 Jul 89 05:58:46 GMT
References: <864@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Lines: 35

lulue@manta.NOSC.MIL (Dan Lulue ) writes:

>The "Get Info" item reports [list of things.] There
>is also a text field  that the user can type information into.

>It looks like the file information parameter block contains all of the
>fields reported in the Get Info window except for the text field.  I
>notice that when the text is touched, the modified date of the file
>changes, indicating that the editable text is stored in the file,
>probably in a resource.  Is this right?  

    Actually, the text is stored in the desktop file, in a FCMT resource.  I
    hadn't noticed that changing it changed the file's modification date.  Are
    you sure you didn't change something else at the same time?  Of course, I
    may just not have noticed.

    It's funny: just before I found out about this feature, I was thinking that 
    what directories in most OS's really need, but don't have, is the ability 
    to tack comments onto an entry.  A READ-ME file doesn't really do it.  Now
    if we could only have the option of displaying the FCMT along with other
    info in the folder window.

>I want
>to get this information along with the other file attributes from within
>a program.

    I'd like to be able to get it too -- not the least to save the comments,
    which I find valuable, between reconstructions of the desktop file.
    However, my understanding is that Apple at present recommends against
    assuming the presence of FCMT's in desktop.  Perhaps they are planning to
    use a different method in an upcoming version.  In any case, I don't know
    how to associate the particular FCMT's resource number with anything else
    belonging to its file.  If it's in Inside Mac, I haven't found it yet.

    Alastair Milne