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From: 3XMQGAA@CMUVM.BITNET (Sari Khoury)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Compactor - A reason not to use
Message-ID: <91003.2251393XMQGAA@CMUVM.BITNET>
Date: 4 Jan 91 03:51:39 GMT
References: <5490@crystal9.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Central Michigan University
Lines: 57

In article <5490@crystal9.UUCP>, derosa@motcid.UUCP (John DeRosa) says:
>
>because it is fast and creates those lovely self
>extracting archives that I personally love to send
>to all my friends (it makes their life so much
>easier).
>My problem is with people using Compactor files
>for the info-mac archives.
>
>1) Compactor can't do binhex - This means that
>everytime that I retrieve a file from the archives
>(and I retrieve a lot of them), I need to
>use one program to un-binhex, exit that program
>and then double click on the Compactor .sea
>file. If I run into a  plain .cpt files
>I need to run Compactor itself, twice as bad.

The combination of the BinHqx DA, and Compactor is great. BinHqx is MUCH faster
 than stuffit Encode/Decode and it splits and joins text files just as fast.
So Compactor is still more convenient than Stuffit if you use this Combinat
ion. According to Bill Goodman (author) he will be adding better file segmentin
g , and a new Binhex feature in the next version.

>Which leads to.....
>
>2) Compactor .sea files don't let you pick
>where you want the resulting files to be
>un-compacted to.  You end up with files
>in places that you don't want them.
>
True, maybe he'll correct that. But all you have to do is open the .sea file
under compactor and then you can direct it to whatever destination you want.
And the .sea only takes up about 10K more than a regular .cpt file.

>How much extra space
>would it cost in the .sea file to add the
>code to bring up the save as dialog box?
>It is just a system call, correct?
>I admit my ignorance here, it may very well be too
>difficult to implement).

Not much.

>Thanks for listening, John

Anytime.
>--

>=       John DeRosa, Motorola, Inc, Cellular Infrastructure Group          =
>= e-mail:    ...uunet!motcid!derosaj, motcid!derosaj@uunet.uu.net          =
>= Applelink: N1111                                                         =
>=I do not hold by employer responsible for any information in this message =
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sari Khoury                    BITNET  : 3XMQGAA@CMUVM
Art Department                 Internet: skhoury@postcard.engin.umich.edu
Central Michigan University    UUCP    : "psuvax1"!cmuvm.bitnet!3xmqgaa
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA