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From: dhmyrdal@lise.unit.no (Dag H}kon Myrdal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: what about a discussion about standart fileformats when posting to comp.sys.binaries in future ?
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.153527.27416@ugle.unit.no>
Date: 12 Feb 91 15:35:27 GMT
References: <1991Feb12.141244.29483@rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
Sender: news@ugle.unit.no
Organization: University of Trondheim
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In article <1991Feb12.141244.29483@rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI) writes:
>Hi !
>
>What about a discussion about Fileformats in future comp.sys.acorn ?
>On Acorn Archimedes there are many Archiving and uuencode/uudecode-Programms.
>I am not sure, that all are compatible (e.g. is Spark 1.0 compatible to
>Spark 2.11 ?).
>What about using standart archiving and uudecodeing programs ?
>Do you know the feeling: I have 10 Dearchiveing und uudecoding programs but 
>I need the 11. ? 
>
>Here are what I think, that this archiving and uudecodeing programs sould 
>be:
>
>1) Public-domain in De- and en-coding. (so everyone can post in a legal way)
>
>2) Compress the Data effectiv (low costs)
>
>3) produce readable code (then it can be transmitted without errors)
>
>4) compatible to MSDOS- and/or UNIX- standarts (so you can decode the files
>   on the Networkcomputer (which are most no Archimedes) and some network-servers
>   ,twice standarts are always good)
>
>5) archiving a hole directory-structure. 
>
>so long
>J. Scheurich

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: what about a discussion about standart fileformats when posting to comp.sys.binaries in future ?
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In article <1991Feb12.141244.29483@rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI) writes:
>Hi !
>
>What about a discussion about Fileformats in future comp.sys.acorn ?
[....]~
>so long
>J. Scheurich

All very good, but you forget the things that have made !Spark
and the dearchiver !SparkPlug popular:
1-  Ease of use; can be used from within deskktop, without any hassle
2-  both compression AND uuencoding in ONE program, making it
    possible to have reasonable small, "pure ASCII" files
3-  Most important: you don't have to set the filetypes; this
    file-info is stored within the archive...

The third thing is also the one that has caused problems regarding
the use of !Spark... David Pilling has chosen a way of coding
directory-structures and filetypes that is *not* compatible
with standard 'arc'. But surely, someone should be able to
do that a better way??? How about storing filetypes the
same way as one uses the opposite way for extensions? To store
a filetype in a archive, you could save the filetype as the
last part of the filename, having an option on the archimedes side
on whether to treat the files as archimedes or 'standard' files..

Also, how does Fil's !Submit program develop? Is it ready for
use?

--Dag