Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!calgary!gaines
From: gaines@calgary.UUCP (Brian Gaines)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Saving style info in text file
Keywords: text, style, files, standards
Message-ID: <1632@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 88 00:16:36 GMT
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Ab.
Lines: 29

Have any standards been proposed for files carrying the new text style
information? It would be useful to have an interchange format. I have
tucked the StScrpHandle information into the resource fork of the
associated text file as a resource 'styl' id 128. The file can be read
as plain text by other applns but mine can pick up the style info and
restore it.  However, if we all start inventing resource ids there will
be chaos.  In the longer run it would be nice if MacWrite, Word, etc
would read up these files.

IT WOULD BE USEFUL IF APPLE SPECIFIED A STANDARD FOR A STYLE RESOURCE
IN A TEXT FILE.

Meanwhile it easy to output MacWrite & Word interchange formats to pass
the style (but not the color!) over.  Less easy to reverse the process
as you have to throw away a lot of info.

As an aside, printing the new formats takes little effort - the TEStyleRec
is very neatly structured.  Getting scrolling to work correctly without
truncation or garbage bits is more effort.  Unfortunately, we have to throw
out the TEAutoScroll of IM IV and go back to our own ClikLoops again.
The pleasure of seeing multicolor, multisize, multifont, multiface text
scrolling around in a document, resizing, word wrapping, etc, is well worth
the effort however.

Tab support and getting over the 32K limit make the final result far
hackier than it need be.  Hopefully, these might get into the roms one day.

Brian Gaines
gaines@calgary.cdn
{ihnp4}!alberta!calgary!gaines