Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!metro!macuni!ipc07!s8105119
From: s8105119@ipc07.mqcs.mq.oz.au (Gary Kevin MAKIN)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1084@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz>
Date: 26 Jun 91 00:37:04 GMT
References: <1991Jun22.045446.2732@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> <102@ryptyde.UUCP> <25668@well.sf.ca.us>
Sender: news@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz
Organization: Macquarie University, School of Mathematics, Physics, Computing and Electronics
Lines: 52

In article <25668@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes:
>>You stated that the file type of a Macintosh file was kept in the
>>resource fork. It isn't.
>
>Where is it kept, then?  Last time *I* looked, file types were definitely
>resources, and thus *had* to be in the resource fork.  Has this changed
>in 7.0?  If so, why doesn't EVERYTHING break?

This is very simple. The file type is *not* kept in the resource fork of a file.
It has never been kept there. The file type is in the file header. Proof: every
file has a file type. Not every file has a resource fork. QED.

There is sometimes a resource with the same ID as the file type, but this is not
where the file type information is stored.
>
>>Our bitmap, drawing, text, formatted text, movie, sound, etc.
>>don't need resources, although they can be transfered into one (some of
>>them).
>
>Hmm?  Many of those ARE resources, kept in the resource fork.  Are you
>saying this is not so?  If so, what about those that are?

Lets use PICTs as an example. There is a file format PICT and there is a 
standard resource called PICT. These use the same format and can be easily
converted between. To get a resource and turn it into a file, use ResEdit to
copy the PICT into the clipboard. Open MacDraw and past the PICT in. Now save
this MacDraw document as a PICT file. Reverse the procedure to go in the other
direction.
>
>>You can just as easily use them on other machines.
>
>Yeah, so?  You have to go through hoops to do so.  I did the Amiga version
>of Crystal Quest, and one of the biggest pains in the butt of the entire
>conversion was pulling the data out of the resources and converting it
>into some usable format on the Ami.  Just how many machines, pray tell,
>can handle PICT resources directly?

Maybe you should have turned the PICT resource into a file as mentioned
above, and then used something like Giffer to turn this into a GIF file.
Or used another program for a different format. Whatever you would like.

Crystal Quest, and most other Mac games, use PICT resources so that all
the graphics are contained in the one file and are then easily available.
This make life much simpler (on the Mac) than having a directory full of
small misc graphics files. I consider it one of the best results of using
a resource fork.
>
>-- 
>Mike Farren 				     farren@well.sf.ca.us

Gary Makin