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From: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Picture files
Message-ID: <3684@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Wed, 19-Aug-87 07:17:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.3684
Posted: Wed Aug 19 07:17:52 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Aug-87 06:54:42 EDT
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Reply-To: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
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Organization: California Institute of Technology
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I'm kind of new at the mac so please excuse me if I am being dense.
Is there any reason why PICT files (or any other type of file for that
matter) are not used extensively as a standard way of describing
pictures in the way that files of type TEXT are used for text?
MacPaint could have a Save As PICT option in the same way that
MacWrite has a Save As Text option.  Sure, it would be a picture
containing a bitmap, and would thus not be much different from a
regular MacPaint file (do picture definitions use the same data
compression algorithm that MacPaint uses?) but the philosophy of the
thing would be different.  

If such a standard existed, we could have simple Finder functions or
DA's or whatever to display both TEXT files and PICT files and not
feel guilty about being application specific.  I like the idea of
having a graphing program which can store the image of the graph as a
file which can be viewed quickly in the Finder, given to people who do
not own the particular graphing program I use, or perhaps printed by
the use of a simple program.  Etc. 

With the risk of getting off the subject, someone said that having a
Finder function to view MacPaint files was unpalatable as it was too
application specific.  I do not find this so, as the System already
includes an fkey which saves the screen as a MacPaint file anyway. 

						-Sho
 (sho@tybalt.caltech.edu, sho@caltech.bitnet, ...seismo!cit-vax!tybalt!sho)

"What's wrong with using the word 'etc.' as a sentence?"